


Silver Lining

by CrossedVagabond



Series: The Bombshells [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fake AH Crew, Gang Violence, Reader-Insert, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-06-06 02:53:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 30
Words: 63,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6734989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrossedVagabond/pseuds/CrossedVagabond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Los Santos' underground had a balance of power, the Fake AH Crew and your own crew. An uneasy peace, but still peace nonetheless. When another crew starts to cause trouble, your two crews will have to work together to maintain your control over the city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spilled Coffee

_"There's a storm on the streets, but you still don't run."_

_-Silver Lining, Hurts-_

Los Santos. Crime capital of the United States of America. Local politicians have been trying for years to clean up the city to make it safe for tourists, but the gangs have been there for far too long for any change. Though you have noticed that they have turned their attention away from purely attacking the big gangs and started focusing on minor crimes, and tidying up the city, increasing police force, yadda, yadda.

Currently, the Fake AH Crew was the top gang in the entire city. No police in the city would dare touch the gang leader either. He had his hands so deep in Los Santos, that taking him down with no proof was next to impossible. He covered his tracks well. You had seen him kill someone once, and seen him organize drug cartels. He was as involved in the crimes as the rest of his crew.

Of course, as a gang leader yourself, you had mixed feelings about Geoff Ramsey. Respect for him, you guys normally got together every couple of months and spent a ridiculous amount of money to try to one-up each other, but you also hated the fact that his crew was still number one. Though, in the end, you guessed it didn't matter. The two of your crews kept any other crew from rising up, and there was a balance to Los Santos that it hadn't felt for the longest time.

You pull your sunglasses down as you emerged from a coffee shop; you had four coffees on a tray while Meg had the other two. A quick coffee stop before the meeting. She checked her watch and announced that the others had reached the penthouse. You glanced down at your own watch and ran headfirst into someone. Your first thought was to threaten the shit out of whoever slammed into you, and your second thought was that you had literally dropped fifteen dollars worth of expensive coffee all over the sidewalk. You stared at it blankly and then raised your eyes to see the bastard who ran into you.

"Shit...I am...I am really sorry," the man apologized, surprising you. Any other man in Los Santos would've accused you of being the dumb bitch who should've been watching where you were going. It baffled you just long enough that he continued speaking, "I could...buy...I can totally pay you back for all of that. I should've been watching where I was going."

Meg was waiting just off to the side and you met her eyes, she tilted her head, raising her eyebrow. You waved your hand, and she nodded and headed on to the car.

"It's okay...I'll just go get some more. It's not that big of a deal," you assure him, if you were to snap at him you'd feel bad. He had the entire ‘I'm new to Los Santos' vibe, and you didn't want to be just another stereotype. As you turned to head back to the coffee shop, he called out again.

"No, really. I'll pay you back," he walked to stand in front of you. "It was my fault."

You study his face, but he exuded an innocence and sincerity that you sighed and smiled warily at him. This guy wouldn't make it a week in Los Santos. "If you are sure..."

"Absolutely," he returned the smile, and you led him back to the coffee shop. He barely batted an eye when you ordered the four drinks, and the total was read out. Instead, he pulled out a twenty dollar bill without questioning the price and collected his change. Though, that part shouldn't surprise you. Most people in Los Santos spent money like it was going out of style, especially tourists. You idly wondered if he was a tourist, and move to the side to wait for the drinks. He didn't say goodbye but came to stand beside you. Though you knew nothing of this man, he was obviously embarrassed by the situation.

"Have you been in Los Santos long?" you question, tucking your sunglasses into the front of your shirt. He snapped out of his thoughts and nodded his head.

"About three years," he shrugged his shoulders, the time surprised you. He must keep his head down and never pissed off anyone. "Give or take...why?"

"You seem..." you trail off and then let out a light laugh, "A bit too nice to have been here that long."

"Is everyone you meet here that bad?" he asked, eyebrows rising, "I think you need to travel to a different part of the city then."

"Which part are you from then?" you ask, but before he could answer you throw in, "Because I think I'd travel there more often if there were guys like you."

His face tinted pink and he cleared his throat, "Uh...well...I mean Los Santos is full of crimimials."

"Crimimials?" you couldn't help laughing, and covered your mouth as he presses his mouth into a line and closed his eyes as if cursing himself.

"Criminals," he said firmly, "It's full of criminals."

"It is," you swallow your giggles, and decide to get off that subject as fast as you could, and you tell him your name, asking for his as well.

"It's Ryan," he introduces and gives you a relieved smile. You return the smile and hold out your hand. He shakes it, and your hands linger together for an extra second. It had been a long time since you felt an actual connection to someone outside of your crew, but you almost wanted to find an excuse to linger in the coffee shop with this complete stranger. You had been spending so much of your life disconnected from other human beings that you weren't already acquainted with.

The barista called your name and you tore your eyes away from his. "Thank you again," you tell him as you take the tray from the barista and offer him one more smile. "It was nice meeting you."

"You as well," he almost sounds reluctant to say those words, but you didn't put too much thought into it. With one last lingering look you headed towards the door, pulling your sunglasses off and shifting into boss mode. You had a crew to run. Meg looked up from her phone as you open the door to her car. She wriggled her eyebrows and you roll your eyes.

"Wait!" Ryan called, jogging up to the car; you pause with your foot inside the car. He held out a piece of paper to you, with a bit of confusion you take it and he looks a tad nervous as you flip it over. A number. "I-Well, if you want to phone me...or text..."

You tuck it into your jacket pocket, "I'll keep that in mind," you tell him, with a warm smile you climb into the car. Meg wasted no time before she gave Ryan a tiny wave with her fingers and then tearing the car away from the curb. You feel the weight of the paper in your pocket and keep your eyes steadfastly on the windshield.

"So...what's his name?" Meg teased instantly, "It isn't every day that you of all people flirt with random strangers."

You hide a smile by sipping your coffee, "Isn't that odd? I didn't get it," you lied, but she saw right through it in an instant.

"You didn't get a number without a name, that's just stupid," she accused, her voice rising slightly, "Come on, spill!"

With a sigh you shake your head, "We've got more important things to focus on than boys, don't we? We aren't in high school anymore, Meg."

"Fine, don't tell me," she huffed, but her tone was lighthearted, "I'll figure it out someday."

You are glad when she drops the subject, and you reach into your pocket and pull out the piece of paper. You could practically feel Meg wanting to pry but she keeps quiet as you read over the number. You fold it back up and hold it in a closed palm. The sunny streets of Los Santos rush by, and you look out the window at the passing scene. Should you even bother with his number? Being a criminal was killer on social life. At any moment someone could recognize you, a cop who might've seen your face once, or an enemy who has been tasked with finding you. If you went on a date who could say it wouldn't end badly? You moved the piece of paper between your fingers before looking at the number.

"Just text him," Meg's tone went serious as you opened and then closed the paper once more. "Flirt a bit, if he's your type continue texting him. If he's not? Stop. Hell, if he isn't? Then reel him in and get some. You haven't gotten any since...well..."

"My last...relationship?" you ask eyebrow quirking.

"That wasn't a relationship," Meg accused, "You two did the nasty a couple times, but it never affected your personal life," she sighed, "If only I was that lucky with the guys and girls I get."

"I could set you up," you hold up the piece of paper and Meg laughs that the suggestion. You grin back before pulling out your phone and she smacks your arm lightly.

"Don't you dare."

You type his number in and then start typing a text. Meg panics only slightly until you tell her you're just making sure that the number really is his and he wasn't giving you the number for some random company, as you had gotten numbers from men and women alike which just sent you to companies trying to get you to buy things. As you're explaining it, your phone goes off and you feel a pressure in your chest of excitement that you try to squash as you look down at your phone.

Who is this?

You frown; maybe it's the wrong number? You send another text, teasing and reminding him who you were. His response back was immediate and apologetic. You would never admit it but you could almost see his embarrassed face behind the message and your smile came back. The two of you text the rest of the way to the meeting, and the moment Meg put the car into park you shoved your phone into your purse and went into boss mode once again. With the coffees in your hands, and your sunglasses on your face you strut into the building and to the elevator.

The ride up was silent, all the way up twenty stories.

When the doors open you enter a small hallway that leads to the crew penthouse (The Fake AH Crew had one, and the moment you're crew found out they begged you to find one). Lindsay glances over as you open the door and she quickly says goodbye to whoever she was on the phone with and gives you a quick smile.

"Hey!"

You return her smile and pull one of the drinks out from the tray. She gratefully takes it and jerks her thumb towards one of the doors, "The rest of them are in the room, I just got a phone call."

"Well, let's plan a heist, shall we?" Meg grins as you toss your sunglasses on the table. Lindsay takes the drinks from you and heads into the room first. You hear the happy cheering from your crew as Lindsay handed out the rest of the drinks. "Don't you think this whole conversation about that guy is over," Meg lightly threatened, holding out your coffee.

"Yes, dear," you reply before taking the drink and ushering her into the room.

You get a chorus of greetings as you enter the room and you grin at them. Your crew. The main crew at least. This was the planning stage; you'd bring in the behind-the-scenes portion of the crew when it was closer to the final stage. For now, you just wanted to get the basics laid out and work it out with your crew. Just as you had always done since you started this crew years ago.

"So," Jeremy rubbed his hands together, "Where are we going to hit this time?"

"We should steal some more art," Jon suggested, "It's easy but it gets us a shit ton of money."

"I think we should hit another crew," Caiti piped up, "Fakehaus is getting a bit rowdy lately."

You bring up a map of Los Santos on the screen while they delved into the many possibilities of heist locations. There was only so many places that the crew could steal from, too many were claimed well in advanced by the Fake AH Crew as theirs. With a crew as well known and dangerous as theirs, you didn't want to get into a war and avoided them as best as you could. There was still the occasional time where you did end up choosing a place that Geoff Ramsey was having his crew stake out and hit it before they could just to piss him off. Not enough that he would retaliate too hard, but just enough that he gives you a little shove back.

"How about we hit the Maze Bank?" Lindsay spoke up, "Nobodies gone after that bank in forever, its security would be getting lax, right?"

"That's going to draw too much attention to us," Caiti protested, "We just hit a bank last month."

Jeremy and Jon agreed with Caiti, but you and Meg agreed with Lindsay. You lean against the table, "So, Caiti, what should we do instead then? Let's see if we can figure out something else before we completely bust down the bank idea."

Meg looks up from her notes, "The Fake AH Crew is going to be hitting the bank in about a month, allegedly."

The crew went silence for a moment and you saw Caiti, Jeremy, and Jon all sigh. "Okay," Jon pushed his hair back, a defeated look on his face. "The bank it is. Man, we gotta stop trying to one-up them."

You went to make a retort when your phone rang from your purse.

You saw everyone look at each other before looking at you. Meg counted out all of the crew with her finger before speaking up, "Well, everyone who has your phone number is in this room so it must be just a...wait..." a devilish smile stretched across her face.

"Anyway-"

"Is it that guy you met earlier today?" she leaned forward, fingers lacing together beneath her chin. You give her a sharp look that she doesn't even bat an eyelash at.

"Guy?" Caiti perks up as well.

"You gave a guy your phone number?" Jeremy laughed, "Oh man, I thought you-"

"We've hit this bank before," you powered on in a tone that left them no room to continue the teasing. You could feel them trying to figure out how to steer the conversation back.  "We need to scrap the old plan; first we need to figure out the security upgrades, especially since the Fake AH Crew attacked it last. They were caught but not captured," you explained, "Meaning the Bank would've made sure that they hired someone to increase the security tenfold. Lindsay, Caiti, you two are in charge of figuring out who they hired, and what they installed. If we can find a plan of where they installed cameras, alarms, and all that? All the better, if not Meg and Jeremy will head in and make a layout of the camera system. Jon, you'll be in charge of-"

"I think the bank was looking for someone to paint a mural," Caiti suggested, "Jon could paint the mural and he can get a layout of the inside of the bank without drawing suspicion."

Another text comes through, but this time the crew chose wisely to ignore it as you all break down the roles of the heist. Contingency plans over contingency plans were made, and you checked the time. Lunchtime. It was the weekend, and you knew that your crew probably all had things they wanted to do for the afternoon and evening today, so you dismissed them. Jeremy lingered in the penthouse, but just to play on the consoles there. He was playing against someone named BrownMan when you finished stashing away all of the plans in the safe behind one of the anime posters that Meg had hung up.

"Wow," you lean on the back of the couch, watching him play. "You suck."

Jeremy snorts, "I'll have you know, I'm great against anyone else."

You pat his shoulder, "I believe you."

He smiles, shakes his head and turns back to the screen.

With him focused on the game, you dig into your purse and pull out your phone. Two text messages from Ryan. You quickly unlock your phone.

I know we have known each other for a total of two hours but would you care to go on a date with me?

Your mouth dropped open and you hear a tiny squeak escape your mouth, you glance over your shoulder back at Jeremy, but he cursed at the TV and grumbled to himself as his character respawned. The second message was obviously in response to your delayed time.

Shit that was way too soon wasn't it...

You hesitate as you hit the reply bar, and stare at your phone. Should you? Or shouldn't you?

You sent back a text agreeing.

God, you hadn't been asked out on a date in more than a year.

What would you even wear?


	2. Let's Heist

If someone asked you what was easier, setting a date for a heist or a date, you would answer a heist. It seemed like both of you were always booked up whenever the other was free. Or, if you both had a day when you could go on your date, someone was suddenly called away for some reason. On your end, it was because of your criminal activities, and his was due to his job. On top of that, it was almost like your crew knew you were going on a date and they were trying to make your life difficult. You had to bail Jon out of jail for trying to sell a forgery of a painting to an undercover cop. Another day Meg and Lindsay were in a shootout and you had to go with your crew to help out.

He worked as an IT guy for the city, and he was in charge of keeping servers running. There was a surprising amount of times when the servers would crash or someone needed a hand at the offices.

A month rolled past, but you didn't lose hope. Instead, he made sure to text you and phone. You video called him a couple times when you both had spare time. It was nice and comfortable. Although, you couldn't exactly talk to him about work, and really open up to him, but it was nice pretending to not be a criminal.

You adjust your earpiece as Caiti guides the car towards the Pacific Standard Bank in the north end of town. She was the only one in your crew that surprised you when she approached you to join. After all, she has very high morals, and ever the socialite. She takes only what she needs from the heists, and donates the rest of her cut to charities. If you hadn't been in the game since you were a teenager, you might have been swayed into being a better citizen by Caiti.

Which was why you kept her on the crew, no one suspects her to be a criminal.

Plus, she was a natural at picking locks and finer details.

"Is it Jacob?" Meg's voice crackled in her ear, you scowl. She had been trying to guess Ryan's name for the past month, and you hadn't given her an inch. Furthermore, you hadn't given her any other information on him so she couldn't track him down at all.

"No."

"Robert?" she tried again.

"As much as I love this game," Jeremy spoke up, the sound of a helicopter buzzed in the background. "ETA is in two minutes."

"Then we still have a minute to play it," Meg replied back, but the subtle shift in her tone meant she was working. She and Lindsay were inside the bank, with Lindsay hacking into the security systems.

"I think that it's sweet that she's keeping him a secret," Caiti gave you a warm smile, "It's not like this life is easy or safe."

Caiti parked the car a block away from the bank and the two of you climbed out of the car. You lifted your arm and pulled down your sleeve to check the watch. One minute. Caiti looked at her watch as well and then nodded. She was in charge of the getaway vehicle. Jeremy was the contingency plan; in case Caiti couldn't get to your group then he would park on the rooftop and collect yourself, Meg, and Lindsay. Jon was support back at the penthouse, feeding the group police reports, and other relevant information.

"Remember, we have fifteen minutes in total," you tell them as you walk at a quick pace towards the bank. While it was dark out this was Los Santos, it was never dead outside. "Timer starts as soon as Lindsay cuts the security feed. Jon, you time us, make sure we have a five-minute head up before we have to get out."

You dart down the alley next to the bank and make your way towards the back door that Meg had left propped open. You pull out a mask from your jacket and yank it down over your face.

Lindsay didn't look up as you enter, her fingers typing along the keyboard in front of her using the codes that Meg had acquired to unlock the doors and turn off cameras and alarms. They both had their masks on, and Meg was pointing her gun at the two security guards who were occasionally jerking against their bindings. No one spoke until Lindsay nodded her head.

"Fifteen minutes," you deepen your voice and Jon's voice crackled confirmation through your comms. Meg and Lindsay quickly chloroformed the two guards as you hit the button on your watch to start the countdown.

It was like clockwork after that. The three of you marched straight down to the vault, and the two girls stood guard as you took the bag from Lindsay and began setting up the drill to cut through the lock. Sure, you could've gotten one of the security guards to unlock the door for you, but where would the fun in that be? Would it be a heist if it was really that simple?

"You motherfucking cocksuckers!" someone shouted, their voice cracking slightly.

You twist around, gun out of its holster and pointed ready for a kill before you even registered who it was.

Four men stood at the entrance, with Meg and Lindsay pointing their rifles at them ready to kill.

One of the men stepped forwards and rips off his mask, "This is our heist!" he complained, "Get your own!"

"Geoff?" you blurt out, "You guys normally have longer gaps between your heists!" you turn back to the drill, ignoring the men. They weren't much of a danger to you, or anyone really. Well, the Vagabond was, and so was Mogar. Well...they all were, you weren't going to discredit them, but they were more of a danger to themselves.

"Goddamnit," Jack's voice cut through Geoff's complaining, "Vav alerted a police officer when he was showing Mogar his gun."

You faintly hear a shootout in the distance, but push your focus back to the drill. Hurrying up, it wouldn't be long until these idiots screwed up your heist. How the hell they were successful at this was a mystery to you.

"Fuck it!" Geoff yanked his mask back on his face, "Jack! You help her get that vault open, we'll make sure the cops don't come in here."

"If you stay here," Meg grabbed his arm before he left, "They most likely won't notice we are even here, send off Vav and Mogar to draw the police away."

Jon's voice crackled over the comms, "Police are sending SWAT to the bank, what is going on! They suspect that two men are trying to break into the bank."

You didn't respond, drowning them out as the drill finally did what it was supposed to do and broke through the vault door. Immediately sirens began blaring and you twist around but Meg was already tossing you a black duffle bag. It was do or die. Jack helped you crack open the vault door, she carried two duffle bags as well and the two of you began filling them with everything you could get your hands on. Jack strayed away with documents, but you didn't discriminate. Some of those investments could be sold through brokers back to the original owners.

There was a large explosion that rocked the building, and as odd as it sounded you weren't concerned. You heard the swears of your crew, but all their voices were present. Caiti could see the commotion and was reporting what was going on, Jeremy was hanging out of the way until needed, but he really wanted to be in the action.

Once four duffle bags were filled with various rich goods, you and Jack dragged them out of the vault to be met with the sight of a dead police officer at the bottom of the stairs. You swear and shove Jack to the side just as a policeman shot down the steps at her.

Meg leaned out of cover and with two bullets took out the remaining police at the top of the stairs.

Like it or not you were working with the Fake AH Crew. At least until you were out of danger. You moved as a single unit with the group up the stairs, taking out the police as you went. Yourself, Meg, and Lindsay. Geoff, Jack, and Vagabond.

"Backdoor is a no go," Jack announced, "Police have the back alley's blocked off."

"Yes, let's just stroll out the front doors, good idea," Meg snapped at the woman, before looking over at you, she jerked her chin towards the stairs.

"Fuck this," you heard someone mutter over the sound of gunshots.

Vagabond pushed past the group, swinging a rocket launcher off his back.

"Why the hell does he have that?" Lindsay asked, "What good does that do us here? We're indoors."

The Vagabond motioned towards the doors and Jack slammed one of the doors open. The moment she was cleared, Vagabond pulled the trigger and there was a deafening explosion that rocked the building. Car sirens went blaring, and you could hear people start screaming.

"To the cars! Go! Go!" Geoff pointed out the door. Lindsay scooped up the duffle bags that Jack and the Vagabond abandoned, but as soon as the Fake AH Crew was out the doors, your crew took off towards the stairs. You felt your heart pounding as Jon and Jeremy were both shouting at you to get out. Jeremy was there with the chopper and you needed to get out now.

Meg burst out the emergency exit onto the roof first, and you could hear the deafening sound of fire, sirens, and gunshots. The chopper was hovering slightly above the bank and you threw the duffle bag you were carrying onto the floor before gesturing for Lindsay to hurry. She nearly skidded on the roof, a combination of tension and the weight of the bags. Meg jumped up into the helicopter, tossing her bag down and headed into the co-pilot's seat.

Your alarm went off as you took one of the bags from Lindsay and helped her into the helicopter. Before you were even in the helicopter, Jeremy was taking off. He couldn't afford to linger any longer. There were already shots pinging off the side of the copter.

"Go!" you roared, and Jeremy guided the helicopter towards the north end of the island immediately.

Now would be a damn good time for a rocket launcher, but Meg quickly took over the rocket capabilities. You barked directions for Caiti, telling her to get the hell out of there before the police go trigger happy and start mowing down anyone in the area. They weren't exactly Los Santos' best and brightest.

"Fuck!" you swear, punching the seat of the helicopter. "Everything was going perfectly fine before those damn guys showed up!"

"What assholes," Lindsay responded, but her tone was light. She kicked one of the duffle bags with her shoe, "At least they were dumb enough to trust us with bringing their goods with us."

You laugh, in the confusion, they hadn't even realized that they forgot their duffle bags.

"It is almost...cliché," Meg responded as an explosion rocked the helicopter.

"Do you feel bad?" Jeremy asked, and then made an odd noise before the helicopter jerked to the side. "Caiti, we're going to need a pickup at the Sandy Shores Airfield."

You knew that it wasn't fully the Fake AH Crew's fault that everything went to shit. Sure, those two idiots outside had started a firefight, but that would've been isolated outside if it wasn't for the fact that the damn vault door was rigged to set off alarms. If that was even the reason why the alarm went off. You'd most likely spend the next two weeks researching what went wrong.

"Jon," you snapped back into reality, "Meet us at the safe house number three with a list of information brokers and other brokers. I want most of the physical things gone as soon as possible so there is limited evidence against us."

"The police are mainly focused on the Fake AH Crew," he added after grunting out a confirmation, "Though blowing up one of their choppers has directed...at least four police cars, and another chopper. Caiti, take the next exit and drive off-road. You should reach the airfield just shortly after they touch down. You guys prepare for a fight."

You take a deep breath, you hated shootouts. There were too many variables. People abandoned reason once guns came out. Either way, you knew it was inevitable at this point. All you had to do was make sure your gun was loaded, and you were aiming at the cops.

Jeremy circled around from the west side of the airfield, and the police were no longer hot on their trail, but you could see them out the windows. Red and blue lights flashing off the mountains. If the helicopter was any slower they would be able to catch up, and you didn't want to know if they had any anti-aircraft missiles.

"Caiti, what's your ETA?" you ask as Jeremy twirled the helicopter around before starting to descend. "We're about to touchdown."

"A minute, I'll be coming in from the east side," she replied, and you were jealous of the sense of calm in her tone. She was most likely completely free from pursuit, which was good.

There was a slight jerk as the helicopter hit the ground, and the helicopters noise diminished nearly immediately. You take another deep breath and then nod to Lindsay. The two of you burst open the side of the helicopter and toss the duffle bags to the ground. If anything, you wanted those bags to get away if you didn't. Your crew would break you out of jail, and that was something you were sure of. Unless the cops killed you.

In the end, you didn't start the crew to become rich, but to survive. Though, over the years you had slowly become more concerned with the survival of these five people who would do anything to protect you just as much as you would do to protect them.

Jeremy jumped out of the helicopter last and rigged it to explode as Lindsay and Meg grabbed the duffle bags and dragged them towards the hanger. If there was a shootout, you wanted the group to be well protected until Caiti got there. While the hanger was open, it was easily defendable, especially against the idiots on the police force.

Just as Jeremy and you break away from the helicopter, you hear the sirens grow louder and twist your head to see four cruisers bearing down the sandy airfield. Jeremy lifted his rifle and popped one of the tires. The cruiser swung violently to the right in the sand and collided with another. They spun and rolled off the airfield.

You let off a volley of bullets at the cruisers, not truly expecting to hit anything, but more to force the police to realize they had to take a more cautious approach your crew. They couldn't go in guns blazing or else they would lose just as many as you would.

Jeremy turned and lined up another shot at the entrance to the hanger and managed to hit something. In the chaos, you couldn't exactly tell, but you ducked behind cover and pressed your earpiece further into your ear in hopes to hear over the loud sirens and bullets.

"ETA!" you shouted, hoping that anyone would respond to you.

"Thirty seconds!" Caiti replied a sense of urgency in her voice at this point. Thank god.

"Hope you got an armoured vehicle," Meg retorted as she fixed a jam in her gun, "These assholes have decided to start firing back."

"Whatever happened to smart cops?" Lindsay let out a humourless laugh. "Three have gone down already, and Jeremy has taken out two vehicles."

"They died out," you reply as you swing temporarily out of cover to take a shot at one of the cops just before he ducked back into his cover.

"Here!" Caiti announced as a dark SUV swung in front of the hanger.

The four of you scooped up a duffle bag and sprinted for the SUV. Providing covering fire for Caiti as she ducked when a volley of bullets sprayed the SUV. Jeremy tore open the back door and tossed his duffle bag in before climbing into the passenger seat. You popped a cop in the head while waiting for your crew to clamber into the vehicle.

As you stepped in, Caiti was already taking off.

You felt a sharp pain in your shoulder and your arm gave out. You fell against the seats and Lindsay slammed the door closed behind you.


	3. Bullet Wounds

The heist was all the news talked about for the next couple days, and since you were out of commission you got firsthand knowledge of how idiotic the Los Santos Police department was. They assumed it was the Fake AH Crew who pulled off the heist since they were the only ones who were actually seen. Which you weren’t going to complain about. However, you laughed at the fact that the LSPD thought that they were going to actually capture the ones behind the robbery. Meg had written an article accusing the LSPD of having a shitty record for this situation, and how the city should rethink its policy on dealing with criminals. Not the whole shoot first and ask questions later, that generally ended with the LSPD losing a shit ton of officers.

You really wondered how they kept getting more on the police force.

However, that kept your attention for only the first two days. After that, you spent your days flipping through the television stations and waiting for your bullet wound to heal.

On a whim, you check your phone and see five texts from Ryan. He hadn’t heard from you since the bank robbery incident.

_Hey, are we still on for Thursday?_

_Did you hear about the bank robbery?_

_There has been a bunch of reported civilian deaths..._

_Are you okay?_

_I’m coming to your apartment._

You swear loudly and jerk up from sitting. You had meant to send him a response to the question about the bank robbery but you had fallen asleep and forgotten about it the other day.

Unfortunately, jerking up twisted your shoulder and you cried out in pain. You didn’t feel any warmth or dampness from the entry sight and breathed out in relief. If you had busted the wound open again, Jeremy would strangle you, and then promptly apologize for strangling you. You stood up and headed into the bathroom, momentarily forgetting about the texts as you tug on your collar and look at the bandaging. So far so good. No blood seeping through the bandage.

Your phone buzzed again from the couch and you hit the bathroom lights.

Just as your fingers brush the phone, someone knocked quietly on your door. You clambered to your feet and hurried over, abandoning your phone. Peeking out the peephole you see Ryan bouncing lightly on his heels, looking up and down the hall. You curse, scrambling to find a cover story. Had you lost your phone and his number? No. Did you forget to pay your phone bill? No, he would’ve gotten a message about undelivered texts.

Fuck. You look in the mirror; hurriedly adjusting your shirt to make sure the bandage couldn’t be seen before unlocking the door and swinging it open.

 

He presses his lips together tightly seeing you, before exhaling.

 

You both say sorry at the same time, and the tension drops. He gives you a hesitant smile, “Sorry...I just realized this might seem a bit creepy...but I thought that you might’ve been one of the deaths and...”

 

You invite him in before he could finish his words, and close the door behind him. He holds up a bouquet of flowers, “but I brought flowers in case you were upset or sick.”

 

Even if you hadn’t officially been on a date with Ryan, you felt your face flush slightly and felt immensely guilty. You take the flowers, your favourite kind. You remember mentioning it to him once a while back during a call. “How did you know my apartment number?”

 

“Your landlady told me when I asked,” he admitted, and then his face reddens slightly, “I’m a creep, aren’t I?”

 

 “No...You had a reason, I mean if you just randomly showed up at like ten at night it would be a different story,” you reply trying to make light of the situation. Honestly, if you ever felt threatened by him, or if he did truly show up at ten without an invitation you would shoot him. Well, until you were dating for a while at least. You walk into your apartment to find a vase. He follows tentatively and examines your apartment. You had to have a talk with your landlady about just telling random people which apartment was hers, or find one that had better security.

 

Downtown Los Santos might be a good idea, the apartment there were classy and large. Enough for your crew to meet there. Nah, you’d buy one of those for a safe house. Much easier.

 

“Are you sick?” he gestured towards the box of Kleenex and thick blanket on the couch.

 

You realize the state of your apartment and your cheeks heat up, you hadn’t cleaned up since coming home after the heist and it was a mess. “Sort of,” you mumble placing the flowers on the center of the counter. “Sorry for not texting you, my phone has been getting spotty reception. I didn’t get any of your messages until today,” you lied, that was better than nothing right? You made sure not to look directly at him in case he saw the lie on your face, busying yourself with adjusting the flowers.

He nods and then bounces slightly on his heels. You could see that he hadn’t thought about what to do once he had actually gotten to your apartment. You walk over to the couch and clear the blanket off, patting the couch beside you. He gave you a smile before plopping down on the couch. You tuck your legs underneath you and flip from the news to a random movie station. The awkwardness returned as the two of you watched the television.

During a commercial break, you got up and grabbed some chips and asked him what he wanted to drink. He stood up and walked over to the kitchen, “What you got?”

“Water, beer, juice, coolers, soda,” you list off looking in the fridge.

“What kinds of soda?”

“Uh...” you reach forwards and pick up a jug of milk blocking the soda with your bad arm without thinking. Your arm gives out and you make a pained noise as the milk hits the ground. Ryan pulls you back from the milk puddle and scoops the milk up before it can spread.

“What happened?” he placed the jug in the sink, and turned to you, one hand reaching out to touch your upper arm that you were cradling. “You’re bleeding!” his voice rose in surprise.

You curse and pull your shirt from your skin and see a blotch of red seeping into the shirt. The bandage covering the wound soaking in blood. Jeremy was going to kill you. You were dead. He was going to teach you the proper care of wounds, then stab you and leave you to keep yourself alive.

“Come here,” Ryan guided you away from the kitchen and to the bathroom. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

“Under the sink,” you gesture, looking at the bandage. It wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t likely to kill you...but you didn’t want it to get infected or anything of the sort. Jeremy wouldn’t be that mad, as long as it stopped bleeding soon. What he won’t know won’t kill him after all.

Ryan dug the kit out and laid it on the counter, pulling out gauze, tape, and scissors. “Here, let me,” he turned the water on and scrubbed his hands. You take a deep breath before removing your shirt. He glanced up as you placed the shirt on the counter, and his jaw dropped slightly. You could see his gaze wander to spots, not your shoulder, clearly flustered. He hadn’t expected that you assumed, which was amusing. How else would he treat the wound?

“Uh...I...” he cleared his throat, eyes snapping to yours, “What happened?”

“I...” you start but stop as his fingers brush your shoulder and start to gently remove the bandage. You stare into the mirror watching the expression on his face change when he saw the wound. It went from surprise to a completely blank slate.

“You were shot,” he stated, tossing the bloody bandage into the sink, you nod. No sense in hiding. He obviously knew what a bullet wound looked like. Hell, you couldn’t live in Los Santos and not know at least one person who had a scar from a bullet.

“I was near the bank when the robbery occurred,” you might as well tell him a modified truth, that way it was less likely to blow back in your face if you slip up. “When the firefight started I tried to get away, but a bullet caught me in the shoulder.”

You watched as his face changed to something almost akin to guilt.

“I’m sorry-”

“It wasn’t your fau-” you grunt as he brushes a wet cloth to clean up the blood around the wound. You waited until the pain faded to continue, “Your fault. It was a fucking cop that shot me.”

“How do you know it wasn’t one of those guys?” he asked, pressing the gauze against the wound and taping it to your skin.

“The guys were pretty focused on the cops and getting to their vehicle the opposite way I was heading. It was definitely a cop.”

His brow furrows and you turn around, reaching up and pushing a piece of his hair from his face. “Hey, I’m fine. No emotional scaring, and in a couple weeks this will be just a scar. This is Los Santos. I’m pretty sure everyone who lives here has a scar from some criminal,” you tell him lightening you tone; “It’s the risk of living in this city. Besides, I didn’t want to bother or worry you with this; we haven’t even gone on a date. I didn’t want to be like ‘hey, I got shot and could’ve died haha!’ or anything…”

“Trust me,” he reaches behind you to place the tape down on the counter but leaves his hand on the counter. Leaning forward slightly, “I’d rather be in the know and worry than be in the dark.”

You don’t think before leaning forwards and pressing your lips against his. You’ve had many kisses that were straight away heavy and hot. This kiss was different, it was confident and warm. He pulls away first, and search your face for something. Whatever it was he was looking for, he found, because before you could process he was pressing you against the counter and his lips captured yours.

Your hands slid up his chest and tangle in his hair.

God, it had been too long since you’ve kissed anyone.

His hands wrapped around your waist, one hand sliding up to the middle of your back to pull you closer.

The kiss shifts quickly and his hands drop to your thighs and lifts you up to sit on the counter. His mouth leaves yours and is trailing down to your neck where he nibbles beneath your ear as his other hand trails up your side. You gasp and grasp his neck lightly, dragging your nails down his arm and arching against him.

Your shoulder jabs into the cabinet beside the mirror and you curse. He pulls away from you instantly, face red, and breathing a bit heavily.

“Shit, are you okay?” he gently touches your bandages.

“Yeah,” you grunt, leaning away from the cabinet. You meet his eyes and burst out laughing, he joins you and the two of you giggle for a moment.

“Maybe we should wait until you’re all better before trying anything like that again,” he suggests, helping you down from the counter and offers you your shirt.

“Ryan, that is incredibly forward of you,” you tease him, and his face reddens. Before he can say anything, you lean up and press a kiss to his lips gently. “But really, thank you.”

“For making out with you?” he asks, his eyebrows furrowing together. He offers the shirt to you once more, and you tug it on. Once on your body, his hands rest on your hips.

“No, for caring,” you murmur you hands running up his arms to rest on his shoulders. “There aren’t many guys in Los Santos like you.”

His gaze softens, and his arms wrap around your body, “There aren’t many women like you, either. Believe me.”

You lean your forehead against his collarbone and close your eyes. Willing the rest of the world to fade from your mind. All that mattered in this moment was the two of you, and you weren’t going to let anything change that.


	4. Date Night

Your first date with Ryan. You felt a rush of excitement as you check the clock, followed by an immediate sense of pure anxiety. What if it didn’t go well? What if the two of you had more to talk about over text, and weren’t meant to talk in real life? You shoved those thoughts from your mind as you leaned forwards and carefully applied the red lipstick to your lips. You were wearing a skirt, something you didn’t get to do in your line of work very often, and a blouse. Ryan had said that he had a more casual date planned, but you still wanted to dress up a bit.

One minute before he told you he’d arrive the doorbell rings. You hurry out into the living room, tossing your lipstick in your purse before checking out your reflection in the mirror by the door. You felt pretty, but a sudden flash of self-doubt rolled through your body.

You take a deep breath, shoving down your negative feelings once again and open the door. Ryan clearly dressed up a bit as well; his hair was pulled back and into a neat bun. He was wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket. Most of the time you had seen him he was wearing loose-fitting blue jeans, and then some sort of graphic tee-shirt.

It takes you a second before you realize neither of you had spoken yet, and you feel your cheeks heat up. He lifts up a bouquet of flowers, “I was going to say a cheesy line about how you're as pretty as these flowers, but you are much more beautiful than these.”

You can’t fight the smile on your face and you reach out and take the bouquet, fingers lingering on his for a second before you lift them to your face and smell them. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“I never thought I’d see you blush,” he teases and steps into your apartment as you go to trade out the flowers he had gotten you the last time he was over. He waits patiently as you gather your things and bend down to pull on your shoes. “How is your shoulder?”

“Sore,” you admit, rolling your shoulder lightly and wincing. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“I wish you didn’t need to handle it,” he murmurs before placing his hand on the small of your back and gently guiding you out of the apartment. “Now, let me amaze you with my romantic abilities.”

He leads you out of the apartment complex and down the street a bit. When he pulls out his keys and unlocks his car your mouth drops open slightly.

“A Zentorno?” you murmur to yourself calculating the cost of the car as well as the modifications that had been done. He glances down at you.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing,” you smile at him as he opens the passenger door for you. “This is a nice car.”

“A buddy of mine sold it to me for pretty cheap, I thought I’d take you out in style rather than what I normally drive,” he gives you a bright smile.

You climb into the car and he shuts it behind you.

He refused to tell you where he was taking you until he pulled into a parking spot. The coffee shop the two of you had met. You look over at him curiously, “This is-”

“Just a pit stop,” he promises, “I’ll be right back.”

He jumps out and heads into the shop. You wait patiently for him, checking your phone in the meantime. Jon was hosting a fake art auction right now, and you were a bit worried about him. Then again, you always worried about Jon. Sure, he was a scammer, but he wasn’t exactly used to how cutthroat Los Santos could be. You asked Meg to watch the auction and make sure that he didn’t fuck up and get thrown in jail again.

You replied to a few texts, a couple from some of your information brokers, and one from Meg that spiked your curiosity.

Guess who’s at the auction? One Geoffrey Ramsey with his second in command Jacqueline Pattillo.

You sent a message back. They had to be careful if Geoff bought a piece of art and got it checked he would be furious when he found out it was a fake. They had to make sure Geoff didn’t get any of the art pieces, no matter what.

The driver door opened and Ryan climbed in, you tuck your phone away instantly and accept the tray of cups from him. You also took the small brown bag from him as he buckled in and started the car. “There, now strap in we’ve got a bit of a distance to drive.”

“Where exactly are we going?” you ask him again, and he pulls out into traffic.

“One of my favourite places to get away from the city.”

You don’t bother asking him what he meant; he wanted to be cryptic about it. So you change the subject. You ask him about work and he gave you a vague answer. It was good, the city was thinking about putting in wireless internet around the city in the more populated areas. He asks you about your work and you couldn’t remember what answer you gave him, and so you just tell him you’ve been on leave due to your injury.

The conversation slowly drifted towards family, and you felt uncomfortable with the subject, and you could tell he was as well.

“Do you have any siblings?” he asked, and you shrug.

“I don’t know my father, so I could very well,” you admit.

“Shit sorry,” he spares a glance at you, “Is family a touchy subject?”

“Sort of...though there isn’t much family anymore,” you feel awkward talking about this with anyone save for your crew, but you feel yourself opening up slightly. “My mother died when I was twenty, and she wasn’t exactly a family person. What about you?”

“I...actually can’t relate at all. I have great parents,” he says it softly as if he didn’t want to say it. “I feel like I’m bragging in comparison.”

“No, I’m glad. Your parents should be proud of their son, he’s a good person with a respectful job,” you said firmly, and tear your eyes away as he turned out of the city. You hear him murmur something, but before you could ask him about it he changes the subject. Soon, you two are chatting about your favourite shows and movies. It was easy and calm.

He pulled off the main highway and onto a dirt road. At first, you didn’t think the Zentorno could handle the off-roading, but he did slow down and take the corners slower than normal. He parked the car and looked over at you, “It’s less than a minute walk from here,” he promises and climbs out. You follow, leaving everything besides your phone, the drinks, and the paper bag in the car. He takes the coffees from you and then takes your hand.

True to his word, a few seconds later you see where he was leading you. You feel a smile stretch over your face. “You know we aren’t supposed to be here.”

He grins down and shrugs a shoulder, “That’s what makes it great.” You laugh and he releases your hand to check his watch. “We have about an hour before they send a patrol up here to make sure that people are listening to the signs.”

You stare up at the signs. In all the years you have lived in Los Santos, you had never bothered going to the Vinewood sign. It wasn’t exactly illegal, but it was strongly discouraged. However, you wished you had come earlier. The scene in front of you was gorgeous. The sun was setting casting an orange glow over the city. From so far away it all seemed so insignificant to you.

Ryan guides you in front of the signs and removes he jacket plopping it on the grass. “I really should’a brought a blanket.”

“I don’t mind getting a bit dirty,” you wave off his concerns, lowering yourself down onto the jacket as he gestures to it. He drops down beside you, offering you the coffees again. He takes the bag from you and pulls out two sandwiches. “A picnic?”

“It isn’t a picnic unless we have a picnic basket,” he informs you and takes a sip of his coffee. “Is this okay?”

“This is awesome,” you say, and honestly you meant it. It had been forever since you had gone on a date this simple and genuine. Most times you were taking out to lavish restaurants or to some sort of big event. Men of Los Santos flaunted their money, and you generally went out with men who didn’t have a used Zentorno and wore graphic tees. Who had long dark hair, and bright blue eyes. Who held doors for you not because he was trying to uphold a standard of manliness but because it was the kind thing to do. Who bought you replacement coffees when you spilled them.

You could see yourself falling in love with the man sitting beside you, telling you about the time he created a buzzing device to drive one of his coworkers crazy.

It scared you, but when he finishes his sandwich and leans back, you marvel at him. You weren’t scared of the commitment. You were scared of dragging this man into your world.

You lean against his side, and he quiets for a moment.

The hour was over too fast, and he was whisking you back to your apartment. The two of you had fallen into a comfortable silence as he pulls in front of your apartment complex and he walks you to your door. You unlock your door and turn towards him. “Goodnight,” you murmur softly, afraid of waking up your crazy neighbour who once yelled at you for dropping your keys because it scared her dog. Who was inside the apartment and asleep.

“Goodnight, I’ll call you tomorrow?”

You smile and then look towards your door.

Before you could change your mind, you turn back towards him and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Taking him by surprise. His eyebrows shoot up and his mouth curls up in a smile.

“Bye-”

His hand comes up and slides along your jaw to the base of your neck and pulls you in for a proper kiss. Your eyes close and you return the kiss with just as much fervor.

You pull away only when you begin to feel light-headed, and flick your eyes open to see his own eyes staring at your lips. “Do you want to-”

Before you could finish his phone begins to ring loudly in his pocket. He sighs, annoyed and rests his forehead against yours. “Sorry, that’s work.”

You give him a peck on the lips and step away. “You better answer it then. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

He nods, his hand slipping from your neck, and ran down your back as you step into your apartment. “Sleep well.”

You smile and nod before closing the door. He answers his cell just as you close the door and you hear him grumble into the phone. You lean against the door and close your eyes. His footsteps head down the hall and you open your eyes and stare into your apartment.

Nothing was going to ruin this night. You drop your purse by the door, not bothering to check your phone and head straight to the shower. If anything was important enough, they would come straight to your apartment. Otherwise, they could wait until the morning.


	5. Can't Spell Trouble Without U.

The next morning, after you drag yourself out of bed, you check your phone feeling a bit guilty about ignoring it all night.

Seven missed calls and ten texts. All from your crew.

You swear loudly and phone Meg. You needed to get to the penthouse immediately. As you wait for the phone to ring you hurry into your bedroom and grab the first pair of clothes you see and start tugging them on. She answers just before the phone goes to voicemail.

“Where the hell have you been?” she demands, her voice shrill, “We thought you had died.”

“I told you guys that I was going to be busy,” you snap back, not wanting to get into it. You tug on your pants, holding your cell between your cheek and shoulder. “What happened?”

“Another crew has made a move,” Meg replies back, voice curt and angry. “Some crew is trying to get to our level of notoriety. They attacked seven different spots last night, and all of them were in either ours or the Fake AH Crew’s territory.”

You feel your own anger rising. “Was any of our warehouses hit?”

“Not yet, the places they hit were all public. Places that would get a lot of media coverage.”

You grab your bag and hurry to the garage. You needed to get information about this new crew. Any crew that dared to try to overstep the boundaries was a threat. Even if the FAHC was working on shoving them back down to their place, your crew needed to show the city that you weren’t going to put up with any of this bullshit.

“I’ll be there in ten,” you inform her, “Is the crew there?”

“Jon and Caiti will be here soon.”

“Good, I need you to get in contact with Geoff and see what he knows about the crew.”

You hang up after she agrees, and climb into your car. You tear out of the parking garage and throw caution to the wind. You were pissed. You let your damn guard down for one night and a new crew purposefully attacks two major crews’ territory? Did they know or were they just stupid? Either way, they needed to learn the painful truth and they needed to learn it fast.

Thankfully, you manage to get to the penthouse without being pulled over by any cops, or followed by anyone. You take the time in the elevator to cool yourself down. If you stormed into the penthouse, it would only rile everyone up more. They didn’t need that. You didn’t want them to be either. You needed everyone to have a cool head to face this...complication.

Yes, this was nothing more than a complication. An inconvenience. You just needed to get the crew to see that.

The doors opened and you take the short walk to the door. Lindsay opens it before you could reach to grab your keys.

“Everyone’s pissed,” she warned, “You know what we’re going to do?”

You drop your bag onto the floor and smooth down your hair. “No, but we’re going to figure it out.”

Most of the others would’ve taken those words as you giving up, but Lindsay knew better.

She led the way to the planning room, the door hadn’t been closed yet, and you could hear the pure noise coming from it. Everyone was bickering already. You stride straight to the whiteboard, erasing a partially written heist that you knew you’d have to scrap anyway. The others fell silent as you spin around. “Meg, did you get a hold of Geoff?”

“No, I think they are going on the defensive for now. The numbers I have for him were all disconnected,” she admitted, “I’ve asked a few of my contacts to try to get a hold of Geoff, but for now we’re in the dark about what’s going on with his crew.”

“We’ll live,” you say, but you would rather have the Fake AH Crew on your side right now. Sure, these could be punks trying to get a leg up in the big leagues...but deep in your gut, you felt like it wasn’t.

“We shouldn’t even need their help,” Jon spoke up, his tone a bit sharp. It surprised you, “We’ve had to contend with them for years, and now a new group has appeared? We don’t even know if they didn’t set this up, to try to send us off on a wild goose chase while they plan a huge hit. Or, they could be plotting to knock us down a peg. We can’t be running to them for help.”

“But what if they aren’t,” Caiti replied, her voice light and full of reason. However, you saw the subtle tension in the way she was holding herself. They must’ve been arguing this exact conversation for a while now. “They could be in the dark, or thinking the same way as you. I’d rather make sure they know we are not part of this act than have them think we are and have them come after us. They have firepower and recklessness against our information and stealth. We cannot fight against them directly. We need to have them on our side.”

You agreed with Caiti...however Jon was right. It was frustrating.

“Listen, this is nothing big. Just a stupid little gang thinking they can play in the big leagues. We’ve dealt with assholes like this before,” you announce interrupting Jon’s rebuttal. “They attacked some stores; it’s not a big deal. We still need to treat it like it is, teach these assholes that even if they do the tiniest damn thing against us, they’re going to get triple that back to them. Which is why we need to do is get information, like Caiti said. We don’t go in blind. Meg, Caiti, you both are on recon. I want names and faces of each fucker who hit our stores. I don’t care about the other stores. We need as much information on this new crew as possible. I want to know if they are just naive idiots or veteran criminals,” you order, resting your hands on the counter. “Only use those you trust a hundred percent to get the information.”

“Already on it,” Meg saluted you; her phone rang halfway through her answer. You wave her away to take the call. Before she even stands you move on.

“Lindsay and Jon, you two are in charge of strengthening our security for the penthouse. I also need you guys to make sure that the B team are all still loyal to our crew and haven’t gone dark without letting us know. I don’t want to risk these assholes getting ballsy and coming after us directly.”

They both nod.

With that you dismiss them, leaving you and Jeremy in the planning room.

He raps his knuckles against the table. “We should just go to this new crew and threaten them, break some bones or somethin’. We know Los Santos better, and no doubt we’re more skilled than they are.”

“We don’t know that,” you turn around, picking up a whiteboard marker and began to scribble the information you currently had on the board. “They could be an older crew who hasn’t been interested in the dramatics of Los Santos. I want to know their crew name, I want to know who is involved, how many people, what kind of crew they are. If they just attacked those stores because they wanted to draw attention away from something else, then that’s different than them attacking them to rub it in our face. I don’t like being in the dark, Jeremy.”

He’s silent for a moment, and when you look back at him he nods and drops his gaze to the table. “Yeah.”

“I’m pissed off,” you cap the pen and waited for him to meet your eyes. “Which is why I didn’t assign you to anything.”

“Yeah...?”

“Let’s go. I need my muscle.”

“What are you going to do,” you could see the dread in his eyes, but he was getting up and heading to the gear lockers regardless.

“We’re going to go and pay someone a visit.”


	6. Parley

The two of you leave the penthouse and drive five minutes away. Jeremy adjusts the brass knuckles, staring out the window. “Where are we actually going?” he asks, finally looking at you since getting in the car. “I mean, we’re obviously going to fight someone, but...”

“Well, we’ll see, depending on how they feel really,” you shrug a shoulder, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible. You pull into a parking spot and take a moment before turning the engine off. “I’m going to tell you something but you can’t tell the others.”

“Are you kicking me out of the crew?”

Your brow furrowed and you twist towards him, “What the hell? Why would I do that?”

“Oh thank god,” he relaxed slightly.

“No really, did you do something?” you ask him, feeling your gun weighing a bit heavily underneath your jacket.

“No!” he quickly defended himself, “You just drove like five blocks, either we’re getting ice cream or you’re going to spring bad news on me. Besides, I didn’t get an actual job.”

You close your eyes and relax, “No. Jeremy. It’s about the Fake AH Crew. Specifically Geoff. You know how sometimes Geoff and I go to discuss our truce and keep the peace between our two crews?”

He nodded, and then his eyes widened. He made a noise and then shook his head. “Wait...is it Geoff?”

“What?” you ask, blinking, “That is who we are talking about...yes...”

“No! I mean you’ve been super secretive about who you’re dating and-”

“For fuck's sake,” you slap his arm, the sound was satisfying but it clearly didn’t hurt him too badly. “No! This isn’t about my relationship status. This is about business. Now, don’t interrupt, or I’m making you wait in the car with nothing but a half started story to make you wonder what the hell I’m doing.”

He held up his hands and then zipped his lips.

You sigh; sometimes you wondered how the people you work with could be such high ranking criminals.

“One time when Geoff and I were out, I put a tracer on him and traced him to a safe house. Their penthouse. He later found it and tore me a new one about it, but I digress,” you wave your hand, “However, he made me swear that I would never ever go to the penthouse unless I absolutely one hundred percent needed to. Which, arguably, is not right now.”

“Wait,” Jeremy started, you gave him a look but he continued on regardless, “Are we at their safe house? If these assholes are targeting our territory and their territory, and if they are going to getting increasingly more risky about it. How do we know if we’re being followed or not? Couldn’t you just mail him with a meeting place?”

You were surprised with Jeremy’s thoughtfulness towards the other crew. He rubs his head and then sighs. “Look,” you unbuckle your seatbelt. “If you don’t want to snoop out their penthouse, fine. You can stay and guard the door.”

You climb out, and he’s out of the car just as fast. You smile at his predictability. The two of you ride the elevator up and the higher you climb, the more nervous Jeremy grows. More than once you notice his hand straying to where he had hidden his gun. You ignore it as the elevator bings and the doors slid open, he reaches into his pocket to grab his mask but you stop him. “Not yet. I’m pretty sure if two masked individuals roll up to the Fake AH Crew’s safe house, they’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”

He nods and lets you lead the way.

Part of you was reeling from the idea that you were just waltzing up to their penthouse unannounced. All of this could be nothing...

No. You needed to stop brushing it off. Anything that threatened your crew, no matter how small, could not be brushed aside. If you underestimated a threat, then you could be living with dire consequences.

So, when you stopped in front of the door, you wasted no time raising your fist and thumping twice against the door. Jeremy rolled his shoulders, and you could see him changing his posture, going from nervous to intimidating.

“Don’t fucking continue the god damn game until I get the pizza-” Geoff cut himself off, shifting his gaze to meet your eyes. A beer in his hand, wearing a black tee-shirt and a pair of jeans. He looked like an absolute mess. Your eyebrows rose and his mouth dropped. He blurted out your name and then grabbed a gun from somewhere behind the door. Before Jeremy could pull his gun, Geoff had the barrel of the gun between your eyes.

“It’s so lovely to see you as well,” you say drily, this was not the first time Geoff, or anyone really, had a gun that close to your face. The safety was still on regardless. “I love your look, very...” you look him up and down, “Pedestrian of you.”

“What the fuck do you want,” his voice had drained of all the false irritation, the sounds of the penthouse had stilled, and you knew the crew was just listening in. You shifted your voice to your ‘disguised’ voice when you replied.

“I want to talk about this new competition,” you matched your tone to his. “We’ve been attempting to contact you, and we’d get our normal sources to track down a number but...”

“Yo, Geoff, what’s taking the pizza so long?” a voice cried and you heard footsteps heading towards the door. You met Geoff’s eyes.

“We’re grabbing masks.”

He consented and you pull out a simple black mask. When the mysterious voiced man appeared, Geoff had lowered the gun a bit.

“They aren’t the competition, but we’re going to discuss something else first,” Geoff stepped back and gestured into the apartment with his gun. You only have a bit of hesitation before you enter. You did have a gun, but you wondered how fast it would take for the rest of his crew to come running if it came down to it. Jeremy closed the door behind him, shutting the outside world out. There was a moment of tense silence before Geoff completely lowered the gun and flipped you off. Your eyebrows rose slightly. “You owe me twenty million.”

“What?” you balk, forgetting to mask your voice, “For what?”

“That bogus art piece I bought from your guy,” he pointed to the corner where a canvas laid against the wall.

You are glad that the mask is hiding your smile, but you’re proud of Jon. “So? I think we have bigger concerns than what you waste your money on.”

“Twenty mil. Now. Or we won’t discuss shit.”

You hear more footsteps and the rest of the crew appear. Only one of them bothered to cover their face, and you had assumed he would. You spare them not another thought as you shake your head. “That was your fault, you should know by now that my crew always has forgeries in any art auction in Los Santos. You have my number, you should’ve asked me, and I would’ve happily informed you that he was going to be there.”

You could see Geoff’s anger rising, and you sigh. He wouldn’t budge.

“Fine,” you sigh, “I will give you a forty percent refund.”

“Ninety.”

“Forty-five.”

_“Ninety.”_

“Ten.”

“You-”

Jeremy stepped forwards, but you place a hand on his shoulder and point at Geoff. “I’ll give you forty back, and I’ll give Griffon your number and throw in a good word.”

You could see his jaw work and then he looked at his crew. They seemed confused, tense, and a little bored.

“Fine.”

You grin and then shake his head, “Now, about this new crew?”

“What about them? They’ll learn their place in this city soon enough,” Geoff waved his hands, and then seemed to remember he was still holding the gun and propped it back up on the table beside the door. “They’re probably a bunch of young kids who want to play with the big boys. We’ll scare them into their place.”

“Still, it’s a bit odd that they went after places that are in our territories, innit?” the guy with a blue button up asked.

“Nah,” Geoff waved the man’s suggestion. “New crew’s always want to prove their all badass by going after our territory.”

The protest was on the man’s lips when you interrupted, “Still. I want to go over our truce, just in case.”

The look Geoff gave you was clear in meaning, he saw no reason to do so, but he was willing to humour you. He led you to a door further into the apartment, “Everyone back to what you were doing, Mogar, you come in.”

Mogar, the curly haired brunette, looked a bit surprised at the offer, but he consented and followed you into the room. It was clearly their planning room. The others grew louder as Geoff started to close the door, but once the door shut it went to dead silence. He stalked over to the table and pulled out a chair. “Let’s get this over with, I’m-”

“Geoff,” you rapped your knuckles against the table, “We need to be careful about this shit,” you stress, “Weren’t you the one who told me that I can’t let myself think that just because I am a leader of one of the strongest crews in Los Santos that I am just as venerable as one of the average citizens?”

He sighed, plopping down in the chair, “What changed?”

You frowned slightly, “What?”

“You always ignored me when I said that. Something must’ve changed in your life to suddenly care about whether or not something is threatening you.” You say nothing and he smacks the table with his palm twice, “Our truce still implies. I will not go after anything on your territory or attack any of your people, and you will do the same thing for my crew and territory. Simple as that.”

You glance over at Jeremy; his gaze was locked with Mogar’s. You could tell they were trying to intimidate each other. “Except it’s not,” you look back over at Geoff, “I...” you trail off and Geoff leans forwards slightly. His brow furrowed. “I-”

“Okay, something’s fucking wrong,” Geoff announced, drawing the attention of the other two, “Give us a moment, boys.”

You dip your head slightly and Jeremy reluctantly leaves with Mogar out of the room.

“What’s wrong?” Geoff asked, his voice softening.

“I,” you licked your lips, and lowered your voice, leaning closer to him. “I have a really bad feeling about this, Geoff. I can’t explain it, but it’s just odd. Normally, there is a build up and they attack smaller stores at the edges of our territories. Now? This was in the center, and very close to HQ. I need to request something of you that I don’t think my crew would appreciate.”

He didn’t speak, just waited until you took a deep breath. You didn’t want to have to ask this, but you needed to make sure your crew was safe. You had never gotten involved with a gang war with your entire crew. However, you felt it in your gut. This was going to be bad.

“If either our crews get into serious shit, where we think we can’t get out....perhaps we should ally our crews so we wouldn’t be royally fucked.”

“You are asking to affiliate your crew fully with the Fake AH Crew?” he asked, leaning back, “Alright.”

You blink, that was not the reaction you thought he was going to have. You meet his gaze.

“You're not the only one to have bad feelings about this. Gavin has it, I’m pretty sure Mogar and Vagabond both have it but are unwilling to voice it. Jack and Ray both have mentioned that we should increase protection and go on the defensive,” he tapped his fingers on the table, “Besides, just imagine. Fake AH Crew and the Bombshells. We’ll be unstoppable. Your crew’s manipulation and brains, and our firepower and technological know-how. No other crew could face us, and the police force would have a fit if they figured it out.”

You smiled as he laughed and slapped you on the shoulder, “This is just between us for now, right?”

He nods and rolls his shoulders, “I’ll give you my personal number, you will always be able to reach me on it, but unlike knowing the penthouse location. You actually need to only contact me on it for emergencies. Life or death.”

You nod, “Of course. However, the penthouse is different. Now that your crew knows that I know your penthouse location, they’ll either be impressed with my crew or very suspicious. Either way, I win,” you stand up, “Now. I need to go and do as I do and figure a way to tear down this crew’s reputation brick by brick.”

“If you figure out where their HQ is, send me the location. The Fake AH Crew hasn’t blown up a building in a good long while,” he waved a hand, “Tell the boys I need a stiff drink and Halo fired up before I get out there on your way out, will you?”

You pat his shoulder, “Thanks, Geoff.”

“No problem,” he places his hand over yours, his tattooed hand squeezed yours. “Anytime. Now, you can give that personal number to Griffon.”


	7. Fight Club

“I still can’t find shit,” Meg complains from the passenger seat, she drops her phone angrily into her purse. “No one knows anything or is unwilling to tell me crap. The only thing I’ve got is a picture of one of the men who was stupid enough to get his face caught in a security camera. It’s getting frustrating, and concerning,” her tone changes, “Who is this crew that has scared my resources into not speaking to me.”

“I doubt that they are that influential already, it’s only been a month since they appeared,” you try to soothe her concerns, “Just because they’ve gotten fourteen locations under their belt doesn’t mean shit, they’re still new. It took us four years to build up our reputation before the Fake AH Crew and Cockbites even noticed us.”

“It’s taken them sixty days,” she shot back, “and-”

You look away from the traffic lights, to see her staring down the alley. “What is it?”

“That man,” she pointed to two men down the alley. They were speaking and seemed very unsuspicious, but Meg was staring at them as if they had personally murdered her favourite animal. “He’s the one.”

“The one?”

“In the security feed.”

A car honked behind you and you look forwards the light had turned green. You quickly cut across to the turn lane and found a place to park just down the road. Meg was out of the car the moment you stopped, and you took a moment to grab the pistol under your seat and stuff it into your purse. She was around the corner by the time you caught up to her, and the man was leaving the alleyway and walking down the street.

“I say we follow him,” Meg murmured to you and you raise your eyebrow.

“I thought that’s what we were doing?”

She gives you a stern look and the corner of your mouth raises. “Lead the way.”

You follow at a distance, and the man never looked back once. Honestly, you were wondering how the man even managed to join a crew if he was so shitty at the basic safety of being a criminal. Even if you were trailing after someone, you still checked the faces around you constantly to make sure that he wasn’t leading you and Meg into an ambush. She checked as much as you.

Ten minutes, he finally looks around and then turns down an alleyway. The two of you wait a bit before heading after him.

He stood halfway down the alley, staring at his phone. Meg strode straight up to him, her heels clicking on the pavement, and he barely gave the two of you a glance.

First mistake.

You glance at the entrance to the alley and see nothing but cars. Meg hooks his knee with her foot and yanks. He yelps and stumbles forwards, and Meg takes the moment to bring her fist back and slam it into his nose, sending him wheeling back. His body hits the building and his phone slides across the floor.

He fights against Meg as she attempts to flip him over to get better leverage to hold him still, and you pull out your phone and phone Jeremy.

“Get Lindsay and come to our location, we found someone and we need to make him talk,” you order before hanging up, not getting a response.

The man opens his mouth, “I don’t know anything!” he blurts out loudly, “Let me go!”

Meg slams him against the wall and tightens her grip. “Shut up.”

You stalk forwards and slip the pistol out of your purse. “Keep your mouth shut and you might just survive this.”

He swallows thickly and curses heavily under his breath. “I swear-”

“Shut up,” Meg orders.

Within minutes, a familiar van pulls into the alley and Lindsay hops out of the passenger seat. The car blocks the view from the street, and you feel a sense of temporary safety. Lindsay walks over, smiling brightly.

“So this is the asshole?” she questions pulling a pair of handcuffs from her pockets, “You know the drill, I assume? You have the right to remain silent because we have the full right to bust your teeth in.”

The man’s eyes grew wide and struggled against Meg. Breaking free and starting to run, Lindsay lunged forwards grabbing the back of his jacket, just as you jump in front of him, aiming the pistol straight at his face. He opened his mouth to cry out, and you cock the gun back and slam the butt right into his temple. His body crumpled, and Lindsay watched him fall to the ground.

“Man, you’d think criminals would have more of a sense of humor,” Lindsay tsked as she waved for Jeremy, who hopped out of the van and hurried over. “What do you want done with him?”

“I’ll deal with him,” Meg offered, “I’m pretty sure I can get him to talk.”

“Take him to the Mount Chiliad location, I think Jon is there. He can play babysitter until later tonight,” you command as Jeremy grasped the man’s shoulders and Lindsay took his legs. “Give him food, water, but make sure he’s attached to the chair with the chains. We don’t want him escaping.”

“Strip him down?” Jeremy asked, and you nod, “Damn.”

“Burn the clothes, we don’t want to risk a bug,” you add as they load the man into the van. Lindsay handcuffs the man to the seat and then climbs into the passenger side.

“Let’s hurry up, I have a date tonight,” Lindsay calls to Jeremy as he slams the side door shut.

The two take no time in speeding out of the alley and away from you. You tuck the gun back into your purse and turn towards Meg.

“God fucking dammit!” a voice called from the opposite end of the alleyway. You turn to see two men striding towards you.

Meg tenses, but stands tall. She puts on a charming smile, “Well, hello there.”

“Save it,” the man snapped, “Who the fuck are you two broads?”

“Micha-” the other one started, but the first swung his hand into his stomach.

“Shut up,” he hissed.

You recognized them then, and place a hand on Meg. She frowned slightly as you smile at the two men. “Gavin, Michael, what brings you here?”

They both tense, “Who the fuck are you?”

“We’re part of the Bombshells, and you are in our territory,” you respond, voice dripping with ice. “Now, I’ll ask again. What brings you here?”

“We were making a deal,” Gavin retorted, to the clear chagrin of his companion. “What?”

“Why don’t you turn around and get the hell out of here before we make you?” you take a step forwards.

“After you tell us where our contact went!” Michael demanded, striding forwards as well. A bit of anger rose in your stomach. He wasn’t backing down, and if he wanted a fight he was going to get it.

“Make me,” you hiss at him.

You mistake his distance, and his fist connects with your jaw, stunning you. Gavin squawks and you hear Meg’s heels clack towards you. Adrenaline rushes through your body and you meet Michael’s eyes. There was a brief moment of panic in his eyes before you retaliate. Your fist slams into his chin and he stumbles backward.

After that, it was just connecting punches and kicks. You jaw ached, blood was seeping into your eyes and you were sure your knuckles were bleeding and cracking from the fight.

A hard enough punch sent you stumbling to the ground; you quickly recover and slam your foot straight into his crotch. He swears loudly and crumples.

“Enough!” Gavin grabs Michael’s arm, hoisting him away from you, as Meg wrapped her hand around your wrist, stopping you from taking another step forward. “You idiots,” Gavin scolds, “We’ve got a truce, haven’t we?”

You notice then that his nose is bleeding, and you look at Michael. His eye is already swelling shut, his jaw was red, and his nose had a pretty heavy flow of blood. His knuckles weren’t scrapped up, but you flexed your fingers and felt the stiffness and a flash of raw ache that indicated cuts. You didn’t often fight with your bare hands, but you were proud that you had managed as long as you had.

A smile broke over your face and you laugh, surprising Meg.

“Yeah, we do,” you nod, then bend down and scoop up your purse. “We’ll forget this ever happened, alright?”

“We need our contact,” Michael demanded, spitting blood onto the pavement.

“Look, after we’re done with him, we’ll send him to you guys. You are known for bleeding out the information better than we can,” Meg promised, “Now, go and get his nose reset, and take care of your injuries. It’ll look bad if our two crew’s end up meeting and two of them are sporting pretty bad fighting wounds.”

You were a bit upset that she promised to hand over the man, which was basically condemning him to death. The Fake AH Crew wasn’t known for being gentle with their interrogation subjects. Either way, you didn’t want the two knowing you were the big boss lady and kept your mouth shut.

“Fine,” Michael spat out after a moment, “Just because I don’t have time for this shit. Com’on, Gav.”

Without looking back, Michael stormed off. Gavin looked after his friend before meeting Meg’s eyes. “Sorry, love,” he apologized.

“I broke your nose,” Meg waved her hand; “Your punch didn’t even connect.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” he offered before Michael yelled for him. He smiled and then jogged away.

You wipe your nose, blood coming away on your fingers. The metallic scent of blood filled your nose, and your body was starting to grow sore without the adrenaline. Meg furrowed her brow and pulled her gaze away from the two retreating men. “The brunette looks familiar…”

“How?” you ask, spitting out some blood in your mouth. She tilted her head slightly, and then her mouth popped open.

“He used to get his car repaired at Lindsay’s shop, back when we lived in the shitty apartment above. He always hung around as Lindsay repaired his car,” Meg snapped her fingers, “Small world.”

“Oh! Shit, it is,” you laugh, “Remember when she complimented his tattoos and he completely didn’t get that she was flirting with him?”

Meg laughed, “God. Now he’s part of that fucking crew? Jesus.”

You snicker, and then brush your hair from your face and step back. “Now, how bad do I look?”

“Like Jeremy is going to have an aneurysm once he sees you,” she sighs, and then holds out her hand, “I better go get the car so we don’t cause a scene.”

“I should probably cancel my date then,” you murmur, digging your keys out of your purse and dropping them into her outstretched hand. She nods.

“I’ll buy you ice-cream,” she promises as she runs off.

Fuck, why the hell did shit like this keep happening right before a date?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry for waiting until the seventh chapter to say anything. I just wanted to do a quick thank you for everyone who has read up until now, and for everyone who will read this.
> 
> I also have a quick question to ask you guys. I'm having a tad bit of trouble coming up with a name to call the new crew. The Cockbites mentioned in this chapter is an old crew that has since disbanded, which will be brought up later on. 
> 
> Another thing, I'm looking for a beta reader for this story! If anyone is interested, you can send me an ask over on tumblr under the username crossedvagabond! (I just made that tumblr account so there isn't much on it yet, haha.)
> 
> Enjoy the rest of Silver Lining!


	8. Frozen Peas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some sexual scenes! I would say 'viewer discretion is advised' but this isn't a video, so I guess the appropriate response would be 'reader discretion is advised'.

You check your watch; the pizza should be there any minute. With a sigh, you flip the file closed that Meg had given you on the asshole. His name was Clayton Daniels. He was only twenty-one years old and a university drop out. Meg only needed a name and she could get basically everything she needed to convince someone to tell her everything they knew. If not, then you or Lindsay would go in and use violence to convince them otherwise.

Looking at your phone, you let out yet another sigh and toss it on the table. Meg was currently in the process of her convincing. If you didn’t get an answer within an hour, you would go up to the cabin and offer your assistance. The Fake AH Crew wanted this guy and if they didn’t have him in their custody within a certain amount of time you were sure a few bruises and cuts were the least of your problems.

The doorbell rang, tearing you away from work. It was beginning to exhaust you, and you were glad for a distraction, even if it was just pizza. You tuck the file under the couch cushions.

You pull out your wallet of your purse and pull open the door, “How much?” you ask, opening up your wallet.

“Who hurt you?” the pizza delivery guy asked, and your head whipped up to tell him to mind his own damn business. Instead, Ryan’s blue eyes were drifting over your face with such concern and raw fury that you were taken aback. He stepped forward, his fingers reaching up to cup your cheek.

“Ryan,” you blurt out, surprised, “What are you doing here?”

“We have a date,” he frowned slightly. “Remember? Do you have a concussion?”

You know that your face hasn’t started to truly bruise yet, and you had cleaned up your injuries pretty well. However, there wasn’t much you could do to convince him that it wasn’t a fight. Yet, you still tried.

“No,” you waved him off, stepping back and inviting him into your apartment. “I just thought we’d order pizza and have a night in. I fell earlier today down some cement stairs,” you laugh, but you saw the look he gave you. There was no way he believed you.

“I know when someone has been in a fight,” he walked over to the fridge and pulled out a bag of frozen peas. You dutifully follow him into the kitchen and lean against the counter. “Were you mugged? Have you contacted the police?”

He gestured towards the counter and when you didn’t move he placed the bag of peas down. You took the hint and pulled yourself up onto the counter. “I wasn’t mugged,” you murmured, “and I’ve already cleaned myself up. I’m fine. I didn’t get into a fight.”

He doesn’t respond to this and places the bag of peas against your eye and temple. “Hold this,” he orders, and as you raise your hand, he drops the peas on the counter and takes your hand. “Not in a fight, huh?” he brushes his thumb against your knuckles. You wince in pain and then he kisses the scrapes. “Look...” he meets your gaze, “If you don’t want to talk about it, fine, I’ll respect that. You shouldn’t lie about how you got injured.”

“That doesn’t even make sense, Ryan,” you reply, and he pushes your hair from your temple and examines a cut there.

“I make perfect sense. If you don’t want to talk about the fight, alright, I won’t push, but don’t tell me that you fell over. I’m not stupid and I really care about you. If anything were to happen to you I’d...” he trailed off and his hand slid down to your neck, thumb brushing against your jaw. A dangerous look glinted in his eye, “If anyone hurts you like this again, I want you to phone me no matter the time. I will be by your side in an instant. Whether to bust some heads in or to make sure you are safe.”

You search his eyes and see that he meant his words. Los Santos had gotten to him; he was just good at hiding it. You grab his shirt and pull him in for a hard kiss. The doorbell rings and he pulls back.

“Pizza,” you murmur, moving to get down but he places a hand on your thigh before lifting up the pea bag.

“Ice your eye, I’ll get the pizza.”

“Yes, dear,” you smile as he gives you a peck on the cheek and heads towards the door. You ignore his advice; you had iced your eye less than ten minutes prior. Too much icing and it could damage your face. Instead, you listen to Ryan talk to the pizza guy. He practically shoved money at the guy, thanked him for the pizza, and then shut the door. When he entered the kitchen he tossed the pizza onto the counter and then returned to your side.

“If you don’t ice it, it will look worse,” he warned, but you pull him again to you. Kissing him as hard as you could.

At first, he doesn’t know how to respond, but then his hands are around your waist, sliding you closer to him until your chests are flush together. Your fingers tangle in his long hair, willing him closer to you. The pain from the bruises and the scrapes on your face didn’t faze you in the slightest. At this moment, all you wanted was him.

When his fingers trail to the edge of your shirt, a shiver trails along with it.

You could barely think and for once you welcomed it with open arms.

Your shirt is off before you could over think the situation. You work his shirt off and freeze. His chest is covered with scars. You open your mouth to question, but his hand tangles in your hair and pulls your head up for a kiss, silencing you. You soon forget the scars, as his lips trail from your mouth, down your neck and to the top of your bra. When a groan escapes your lips, he shifts his grip and you are off the counter and in his arms.

He takes his lips off you as he starts for your bedroom. He stumbles over a pair of shoes you had carelessly discarded the other day and a laugh escapes your lips.

That is rewarded by being tossed fairly unceremoniously onto the bed when you arrived in your bedroom. You laugh and he grins down at you. You stare up at him; his hair was out of the tie, a faint blush on his cheeks. He was gorgeous. Your fingers reach out, hooking into his pants, drawing him closer. You press a kiss to one of his many scars; you were going to ask him how the hell he got them...but later.

His fingers run through your hair and then he leans down and kisses you gently on the mouth. You work on his belt, languidly kissing him back. The rush you felt earlier was dissipating, and you didn’t know if you wanted it back or not yet. When his pants are free he pushes them down, underwear and all. Your eyes rake over him and he undoes your own jeans, hooking his fingers at the edges and stripping you nearly bear. You take the job of removing your bra.

You stare at each other for a moment and you notice his blush growing darker.

“Come on,” you edge back on the bed, and he dutifully follows after you. You reach into your bedside table and produce a condom. He takes it from you and puts it on himself. You don’t bother asking him if it’s his first time, the way his hands trail down your sides, and the way his thumb brushes over your centre is all too confident for his first time.

He kisses his way down your neck to your chest, trailing all the way down to your thigh. His blue eyes meet yours before pressing a quick kiss on your slit. You gasp, a shoot of pleasure rushing up your body. It had been too long.

Soon, you were writhing, fingers wrapped in his hair, and his hand keeping you against the bed. His mouth torturing you until you were nearly to the brink.

He sat up, hand wrapped around his cock.

A gentle kiss and he pressed against your entrance.

You could barely wait, biting your lip and fighting back a moan, you were desperate, and you could tell he was no better.

Your phone blared from the other room and you groan. It was Meg. You swore loudly and move to sit up but he stops you.

“No,” he shakes his head. “Ignore it. We’re always jumping to get our phones...I don’t want it to ruin this,” he gestures between the two of you. “Not this.”

You felt torn. The last time you ignored your crew when you were with Ryan the shit hit the fan.

Yet...you couldn’t help but agree.

You link your fingers with him, and then flip him onto his back. “Not this,” you agree, taking him in your hand and guiding him back to your entrance.

Sinking down onto him, you close your eyes, a moan bursting from your lips. He grunted, his free hand resting on your hip, the feeling of his fingers was like fire.

Your hand rests on his chest to support you and you feel his heart beating rapidly. You could feel his gasps and groans, even if they weren’t all audible. You open your eyes and see his hooded with lust, staring back at you. You are filled with such a tender feeling and your eyes tear up slightly. Thankfully, you blink them away before he notices and you drop down to capture his mouth in another kiss.

He flips you onto your back, kissing your neck all the while, and you could feel the urgency. His fingers tighten around yours and a thin sheen of sweat broke out on his body. He groaned into your neck.

When his thumb brushed against your clit your body began to tremble uncontrollably.

His own body was beginning to tremble and his movements were becoming a lot less calculated. He shuddered, and you close your eyes letting out a cry as he brought you to the edge and with another rub, you lost control.

He rammed into you, your name on his lips as you yanked him down into a kiss.

Your body lets out a last few trembles as it rode the high down, you hadn’t come in such a long time.

He slowed down, his forehead resting against yours, eyes closed as he pulled out.

Neither of you moved for a moment.

You were content, you felt exhausted, and you were going to be sore in the morning, but you felt happy.

You broke the stillness by nuzzling his face. He smiled and kissed your lips.

“Can I stay the night?” he asked, rolling off you.

“Only if you make breakfast in the morning,” you tease, rolling onto your side and propping your head up.

“Deal,” Ryan agrees, “Want me to grab the pizza?” You had completely forgotten about the pizza, and you nod. When he gets up, he stops and looks back at you. “I think I could get used to this...”

“Up for round two?” you laugh and he shakes his head, laughing as well as he left the room.

You close your eyes.

Nothing could ruin this moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to MadQueenCaroline for becoming my Beta reader. Mad props to her :DD


	9. B&E

Your eyes slowly open, and you see the numbers on your clock. Nine in the morning. You rub your eye and roll onto your back. “Morn-” you start to say, but your arm lands on an empty bed. With a jolt, you suddenly weren’t tired anymore as your mind ran through a hundred different possibilities about why Ryan wasn’t in bed beside you. You sit up slowly, his clothes were gone as well.

You curse yourself, you were so gullible. Of course, he wouldn’t stay. He had gotten what he wanted and left. You had been fooled like this before, but you had thought you learned by now.

You yank on a shirt and some underwear.

Leaving the bedroom, you were surprised to see Ryan standing in the kitchen, fully dressed and in the process of getting eggs out of the fridge. When he turned around, his eyes lit up and you felt incredibly guilty for ever thinking that of him.

“Good morning,” he greeted, placing the eggs on the counter. “How did you sleep?”

“Like the dead,” you reply, a relieved smile stretching across your face. “When did you get up?”

“About thirty minutes ago, I was going to wait to get up until you woke up...but I did promise you breakfast,” he gestured to the fridge. “However, you have nothing in there.”

You feel embarrassed; you hardly ever ate at home. Most of the time you went going out, or you grabbed snacks at the penthouse. You had a shitty diet. “Sorry-”

“Oh! No need to apologize,” he smiled at you, removing a few eggs from the carton and cracking them into a dish. “You’ve got eggs, bread, cinnamon, milk, vanilla, and a frying pan. That’s enough to make French toast.”

“You don’t have to...” you stutter out, and he pauses, the smile fading from his mouth. You saw a flash of panic in his eyes. The room grew tense and neither of you moved for a moment. His eyes raised from the eggs to meet your eyes.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked, each word sounded carefully picked and arranged. You shook your head immediately.

“No. I just...it’s nothing.”

He shook his head, “No. It’s something.”

You took a deep breath, it was now or never you supposed. “I just haven’t been in a relationship where when I woke up after sex my partner was still here. When I woke up and you weren’t there...I thought you had gotten what you wanted and left.”

“I would never do that,” he interrupted, walking away from the counter and towards you. His hand cupped your cheek and tilted your head up to meet his gaze. “You mean more to me than a one night stand. Believe me, this is my first meaningful relationship in the longest time, and I am not about to toss it away just because we had sex...I was concerned that we had gone too fast or that it was wrong too after your fight-”

You place your hands on his shoulders and press your lips to his. His body relaxes under your touch. The words he said relieved you just as much. It wasn’t a declaration of love by any means, but it still made your heart quicken and your mind race.

“If it was wrong, why was it so right?” you ask him, half teasing. His hands slip to your waist, and he pulled you a bit closer.

“In that case, I think we should skip breakfast and just have dessert.” Ryan lifts you up and plops you onto the counter. His fingers slide up your bare thighs. Your skin blossoms with goosebumps and your eyes flutter closed. A gentle kiss lands on your lips before his fingers hook into your underwear. You lift your hips to aid him as he strips the cloth from your body.

Another kiss on your lips before all touch is gone from your body.

You open your eyes to see his intentions. His hands rest on your knees and spread your legs, you watch him curiously before he lowers his mouth between your legs. A feather-light kiss on your thigh makes you jump and bite back a moan. His blue eyes meet yours.

When he begins, there is no holding back your moans. Your fingers curl in his hair, and your back pressed against the cupboards behind you

Was there nothing this man couldn’t do?

All you want to do is touch him, to feel his skin, the stubble on his jaw, the silky strands of his hair. To feel him inside of you, and to feel the sweat and the passion.

Your body grows more and more tense as the heat pools wherever his mouth touches you. Until it finally becomes too much and your body gives a shudder and you dissolve against his touch.

His tongue gives slow, even strokes until you ride down the high.

Ryan’s head lifts and his hand slowly move up and down your thighs. You reach out and stroke his cheek, breathing heavily.

You are about to offer to return the favour, but your stomach interrupts the thought.

He laughs as it rumbles and he fetches your panties from the floor.

“But really, we do need to eat actual breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day.”

You laugh and take the offered underwear, pulling them on as he heads back over to the breakfast preparation. Just before he starts anything more, you stop him. “Let’s just have cold pizza and watch some TV.”

It took a few minutes but Ryan eventually consented, promising to actually make you a fancy breakfast in bed one of these days. The promise might’ve been insignificant to him, but to you, it was pretty huge. The fact that he was willing to continue on with the relationship after having sex made you want to call up Meg and Lindsay and gush about Ryan. Something that never happened.

Meg and Lindsay hadn’t met or heard about, anyone you had dated since...well just after you started The Bombshells.

It was safer if they didn’t know. For Ryan’s sake.

His head was on your lap, watching some rerun of a whodunnit show. You threaded your fingers gently through his hair and took in every inch of his face. If anyone from another crew found out about Ryan, they had leverage against you. They could hurt him, or reveal who you were to him. That terrified you.

He would hate you if he figured out who you were. He was pure and good, and you were lying about who you were to him.

His head shifted in your lap to look up at you. His mouth pulled down in a frown.

“What’s wrong?”

You blink, forcing your face into a dramatic grimace. “This show is so bad, why are we watching it?”

“You picked it,” Ryan said, and then sat up, stretching. His back cracked. “Want to find a movie while I go to the washroom?”

You nod and he hands you the remote before walking off. After finding a movie on Netflix, you grab your phone. You wanted to see what your face looked like today, Ryan hadn’t made a comment so it probably wasn’t too bad.

Fifty messages and twice as many calls.

Your heart skips a beat and you quickly open your phone. All of your crew had been trying to get in contact with you. Seeing messages from all of them calmed you a bit, no one died. However, they had obviously been attempting to get in contact with you, and this seemed bigger than before.

You open Jeremy’s texts, he was the latest to text you. An hour ago.

_GOD FUCKING DAMNIT IM COMING OVER._

Panic set in and you jumped to your feet, you quickly read the rest of the texts. From newest to oldest.

Come on answer your phone

This is *kinda* important

I will be the first to say you deserve your free time

Meg tracked your phone and knows at your main apartment

One of our warehouses got hit

Ryan stepped out of the bathroom, and your mind races for an excuse to get him to leave. He holds up his phone. “Work phoned, I totally forgot I promised to show the new guy the ropes today. I’ll call you when I’m done, maybe we’ll go out for dinner tonight?”

“I actually have plans for the weekend, me and some of my friends are,” you quickly make up an excuse, “camping.”

He smiles, “Sounds like fun, phone me?”

“I might not have cell reception, remember? My phone’s shit,” you joke, you pulled on some pants and escorted him to the door. “Now! You have work to do and I have to pack, so...shoo!”

“Shoo?” he laughed, tugging on his shoes and zipping up his jacket. “Are you twelve?”

“Yes,” you retort. He opens the door and steps out. “I’ll see you next week then.”

“Bye,” you murmur, smiling at him. He takes a step away and the pats his pockets. “You forget something?”

“Yes, this,” he turned around and kissed you.

You rolled your eyes, unable to stop smiling, and he pressed a quick kiss to your temple before saying goodbye and hurrying down the hall.

“He’s why you ignored your crew?” a voice blurted out, and you tensed, eyes sweeping the opposite way. Jeremy’s arms were crossed, but instead of a furious look on his face, it was more disappointing. You shook your head. “I won’t tell the others, and I hate to say this but...you-”

“Don’t say it then,” you bite back, grabbing a jacket and yanking it over your shoulders. “We are all entitled to our private lives outside the crew. For your information, my phone was dead until I plugged it in this morning.” You lied and motioned for him to lead the way.

“Make sure it’s charged then,” Jeremy snapped, before wincing. “Sorry...”

You clap his shoulder, “What’s missing?”

“Everything, nearly half a million dollars worth of product,” he groaned, and then paused. “There’s something else but it’s better if you see.”

The car ride to the warehouse was silent and tense. You went through the rest of the texts and attempted to smooth your hair so it looked less like post-sex hair and more like I-just-woke-up hair. When you saw your reflection you winced. You face looked worse than it felt.

“How you look will stop the others from asking where you’ve been, if any of them do you were taking care of your injuries and slept in,” Jeremy offered, and you nodded, then squeezed his arm.

“Thanks, Lil J.”

“No prob, Big Boss Lady.”

You laugh and then climb out of the car. There were no signs of a disturbance from the outside, but it was an entirely different story when you walked in.

There were scorch marks, boxes knocked over, and you could tell without even counting almost eighty percent of everything your crew stored there was gone. It wasn’t a huge dent in your crew’s livelihood, but it was still a considerable one.

Meg looked up as you entered, and then caught the others attention. No one spoke as you walked towards them, Lindsay’s eyes flicked behind you and then jerked her chin.

You stopped and looked behind.

On the wall, painted in bright fucking green paint, was the Fake AH Crew logo.

Rage boiled in your stomach.

“That’s not all,” Jon held up a piece of paper, and you snatched it from him.

A poop emoji was crudely drawn on, and the signatures of all the crew were scribbled on it.

“That was stuck to the door when I got here,” Jon grumbled. “They took all my paintings.”

“They are totally behind the other heists, they’ve tricked us,” Meg threw her hands into the air. “What the hell are we supposed to do? If we retaliate in any way that’s as big as this they’ll knock us down.”

“I’m not going to put up with this bullshit,” you snarl, crumpling the paper and tossing it to the side. “Fuck our next heist. Fuck the art auctions. Fuck all of it. We’re hitting their bank accounts. I am going to get every fucking penny they’ve taken from us, plus interest. Then we’re going to burn down their warehouse. I’m through with them being the head of this damn city.”

“We don’t know where they keep their money, or if they keep it under the names they give us,” Lindsay said.

“Then we’ll do what we normally do, we’ll figure it out. I want every penny they have within six months. We’re going to bleed them dry,” you promise.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meg Turney is leaving Rooster Teeth and that makes me so sad. I'm glad that she's going to be able to explore her cosplay and personal projects further, and that she's still welcome back to the company to make videos with the rest of the gang, but I'm just sad we won't get to see her as much...
> 
> I would say this chapter is dedicated to her...but she's not dying. It's not like Roy from Achievemen /joke


	10. R&R: Regret and Revenge

It didn’t take your crew much time to find the Fake AH Crew’s bank accounts. Just a little over a month and a half. They were under fake names, but they were pseudonyms that they had used before in their lives. Geoff, the Vagabond, and Gavin’s accounts were in the same bank, while Jack and Michael’s banks were in another.

The only one your crew couldn’t find no matter how hard they tried was BrownMan’s. They had never really spoken to the man or heard him called by anything besides his nickname. However, they did figure out his name, Ray, and that he thoroughly enjoyed memes and YouPorn. Lindsay stopped her spyware quickly after that.

You stared at the image on your phone of the paper copies of the contracts for the banks. Geoff was under Paul Fink, the Vagabond was James Wood - which was the closest thing they could find an actual name for him- and Gavin was under Scarlet David.

You, Jeremy, and Lindsay were team one, going after Geoff, Vagabond, and Gavin’s. While Meg, Caiti, and Jon were part of team two and we're going after Jack and Michael’s bank.

Jeremy was watching the security feeds and you stood watch as Lindsay began siphoning money out of their accounts and into a temp one. The behind the scenes crew was working on getting the money out of the temp bank account by shifting it into another bank account from the temp and then removing the money from various vending machines over the city.

Once the money was drained, you would flee the bank and join the others in emptying the temp bank accounts.

Looking at Geoff’s account _alone_ you knew that you could evenly spread the money to your entire crew and _everyone_ would be swimming in cash.

It wasn’t a Fake AH Crew level of dramatics; you were literally sitting in a room in the dead of night in a bank while Lindsay hacked the system. If it were them, there would’ve been at least two explosions and fifty dead police officers by now.

Jeremy called your name, “Did you hear that?” he whispered quietly. You shake your head and listen; Lindsay temporarily lifts her fingers from the keyboard allowing you to listen. When there was no noise, she went back to her job. No one was dumb enough to completely drop their guard. There was a difference between hearing a typical noise of a building, and hearing something that shouldn’t be there.

Jeremy stilled, going extremely quiet. You watched him intently as he stared at the computer in front of him. “There are two others in the bank,” he whispered, and Lindsay froze. “They haven’t set off the alarms. It’s Vagabond and BrownMan.”

You curse, if it was Geoff, you could talk your way out of the situation. Nine times out of ten, he’d rather talk than fight. However, Vagabond and BrownMan shot first and asked questions second, and their shots rarely missed.

Lindsay hit the button to shut off the monitor and Jeremy closed his laptop.

“Lindsay, can you remotely continue the process?” you whisper, she nods and your jerk your chin. “Get out of here. Jeremy, where are they?”

“They were on the bottom floor. Lindsay, go up another floor and head to the back of the bank. There should be a fire escape. You can disable the alarms.”

She nodded before quietly pushing open the door and creeping down the hall and out of your view.

“Now we hide out here. I’d rather they think that we’re remotely hacking their accounts, it gives us more power. Besides, I don’t want to go face to face against Vagabond,” you whisper to him, and give him a soft shove. You turn your back on him to peer out the window of the office Lindsay chose to siphon the money in. When you turn back you can’t see him, and you creep out of the office.

Your heart pounded in your chest as you duck into another office and press your back against the wall beside the door.

After what seemed like ages you hear footsteps down the hallway.

“This is the office,” a voice murmured, “Looks dark, no lights. You think it’s a false positive?”

A mumbled response, “Yeah, we’re not talking AIDs here,” the guy snickered then paused, “Wait, do you have AIDs? Vagabond the AIDs guy.”

You heard the sound of a smack, and the man, you assumed was BrownMan laughed. The door opened across the hall and you waited with bated breath. Their voices were further away this time.

“Welp,” BrownMan said, “We’re not alone. These idiots thought turning off the monitor would work. Fucking casuals. I’ll stop the program, you find them.”

You couldn’t believe they didn’t notice Jeremy in the room with them, but bit your lip and pulled out a mask from your jacket. It was a black ski mask, simple and cost-effective. Besides, you didn’t actually think you were going to need a mask for this.

Fuck. How did they find out so fast? Did Vagabond, Geoff, or Gavin, happen to look at their bank account and notice they were losing money?

A gunshot went off, and some of the drywall beside you exploded inward. You dropped to your knees hard enough to crack them just as another one slammed into the wall where your head was. Fucking damn it.

You spun around, pulling out your pistol you waited. The door slammed open and the Vagabond swung in, letting out a burst of rounds into the office. One of the bullets grazed your cheek as you dove underneath the desk beside you. Your elbow smashed against the leg of the desk, but you scrambled backward just as another round of shots cracked through the wood. You jumped to your feet, raising your pistol and letting off a few shots. He rolled out the door and you dropped to the floor.

There was silence before he leaned out of his cover, you lined up the shot and took it.

You swear you planned to hit his shoulder, or his arm, something to stop him from shooting.

His body staggered backward before he crumpled to the floor.

You scrambled to your feet and burst into the hallway.

Jeremy shouted before jumping out of hiding, you looked up just in time to see him slam the butt of his pistol into Ray’s temple.

The alarm blared loudly overhead and you let out a litany of curses and swears.

“Fuck! Fuck! What do we do!”

“I shot Vagabond!” you blurted out. “He’s going to kill me if he survives,” you tuck your pistol back into its holster.

“Geoff will kill us if they die!” Jeremy rubbed his face. “Fuck!”

“Stop the program!” you barked before Lindsay came on through your earpiece.

“You shot Vagabond!” she shouted. “Is he alive?”

“I hit his chest, he’s still breathing but it’s weak. Fuck! Fuck!” you dropped to your knees and pressed your fingers to his neck. A pulse still. “We are not murderers!”

“Fuck this,” Jeremy came out of the room, Ray over his shoulder. “Lindsay, are you still here?”

Lindsay darted around the corner, looked at the situation. “I’ll grab the van.”

“Give me Ray, you take Vagabond,” you order, and Jeremy didn’t waste time arguing. Ray was a bit heavier than he looked, but you were able to shoulder the weight. At least until you got to the van.

The sounds of sirens were growing louder, and you could see the blue and red flashing lights coming up the road.

Lindsay threw open the doors and you dropped Ray unceremoniously into the back before climbing into the driver’s seat. Jeremy could administer first aid to Vagabond, while Lindsay made sure Ray stayed incapacitated. The moment the back door shut, you pull down the alley before turning the car off. The police and swat vehicles speed past, none of them noticing the van down the alley. Once they were passed you, you pull carefully out of the alley and then peeled down the road.

“We need to get Vagabond to a hospital A.S.A.P or he’ll be dead,” Jeremy barked.

You try to remember the way to the hospital as Jeremy did his magic in the back. This was not how this was supposed to happen. They weren’t supposed to notice.

Why did they have to ruin everything?

The hospital came into view and you quickly pulled into the parking lot.

“Get Vagabond’s mask off and toss them out the back,” you order, stopping in front of the doors. They did as they were told, and Lindsay dropped into the passenger’s seat.

“Drive before the hospital staff sees us!”

“Jeremy, phone the hospital and tell them to go out front,” you say, peeling out of the parking lot. Sure, Vagabond might be caught by the police, but at least he wouldn’t be dead. Besides, there was no evidence that you were there.

“Fuck,” you punch the steering wheel. After a moment of tense silence, you punched the wheel again.

“Want me to stop the transfer?” Lindsay asked you could hear the guilt in her voice.

You nod, “We’ll tell the others that we got it all.”

“You want to keep it a secret that you shot Vagabond?” Jeremy asked, dropping the mask on the dashboard. You saw the blood splatters on the mask, “Why?” he asked, “You got the upper hand. This is better than stealing money-”

“I could’ve killed him,” you snarl. “I’m not a murderer. I am not. I will not be known for that.”

“You’ve killed police officers and other crews in gunfights before,” Jeremy retorted, his tone tense and sharper. You felt the guilt rising and you pull sharply off the road and put the car in park. The van was silent, and your eyes flick to the mask.

“That’s different...I’m firing blindly into a mass of people, if someone dies then that’s their fault,” you snap back. “This was...I pointed the gun, and I shot at a single target. I shot a member of the Fake AH Crew. I could’ve killed him. What if I did? Geoff would want my head for that.”

“Is that the only reason?” Jeremy demanded.

You twisted around, guilt turning into rage, Lindsay held up her hand. “Whoa, calm down, guys. That went balls up. Let’s just get back to the penthouse and celebrate. Caiti, Jon, and Meg got what they were there for. We’ve got plenty of money to leave a huge dent in their heists.”

You glare at Jeremy, “Why the fuck are you questioning me about this?”

“Never mind,” he backed down, sitting down and buckling himself up. “Lindsay’s right.”

You kept your gaze on him for a minute before twisting back around and peeling away from the curb. You were going to grill Jeremy about what the fuck he was going on about. Right now, you wanted to get your cheek fixed, and some ice on your knees and elbow.


	11. Smug Winnings

You were dressed to the nines. Everything you were wearing was top quality, in season, and designed specifically for you. Normally you didn’t indulge in this form of, well, indulgence. Most of the money you made was put straight back into the crew, or put away for retirement, or something other than your pure looks. However, it was your inaugural outing with Geoff, and you wanted to flaunt how much money you had because you bested him.

You weren’t stupid, however.

You knew he was pissed about the heist if you left the night without a scratch on you or a threat made you’d be surprised and fearful. Geoff was not one to be crossed after all.

Still, he hit first. You had to keep that in mind and make sure that your dress hid the gun strapped to your thigh well.

Jeremy chauffeurs you to the destination and leaves you behind after some persuasion. If Geoff does snap, you wanted your crew to be far enough away that they wouldn’t get hurt in the fallout. At least not immediately.

You strut into the restaurant with all the confidence of a famous celebrity and tell the maître d' Geoff’s last name. With a smile, the gentleman leads you through the restaurant and into an elevator. You check your appearance quickly in a mirror before the elevator doors opened. The maître d' waved his hand towards the single table on the rooftop patio. Geoff was standing at the edge of the roof, staring out at the city. You take note that you two would be the only people on the roof. You also noted that despite the amount of money your crew stole from him, he still went all out. He wore an expensive three-piece suit, diamond cufflinks, and had the most expensive wine chilled by the table.

Geoff turned around when you stepped off the elevator, and he gives you a smile. It raised your guard, but you offered a smile back and he steps over to the table and slides a chair out. The maître d' calls out a waiter from a set of doors next to the elevator before closing the elevator doors.

The waiter heads over, menus in his hand ready to offer them. Geoff holds up a hand as you sit in the proffered chair. Geoff orders for the two of you, you stop the waiter and change your order. It was a dance you and Geoff always played. He used to be offended, now he just accepts that you didn’t want to be predictable about your food choices.

“For someone who wants my crew’s help so badly dealing with that pesky new crew,  you’re overstepping your boundaries quite a bit,” Geoff commented, sitting across from you and pouring the wine into your glass. You heard the subtle shift in his tone, and you don’t bother reaching for the wine glass. The chance that he drugged it was alarmingly high at this point. For him to open with that? God, you were dead, weren’t you?

“How’s Vagabond?” you ask, cutting to the chase. Geoff leaned back in his chair, his wine untouched as well. There was a long silence, neither of you breaking eye contact.

“Alive,” Geoff said shortly, before picking up his wine and sipping it. “I’d be careful, however, he doesn’t take kindly to being shot.”

“He fired first,” you gave a sickly sweet smile. “I was just defending myself.”

Geoff slammed his glass on the table and your smile dropped. “I don’t give a fuck,” he snapped. “We had a deal. You don’t come after my crew and we won’t come after you. You knew the fucking consequences the moment you came after our bank accounts. If the Vagabond killed you in the goddamn bank, I wouldn’t have given a single fuck.”

“Oh? I knew the consequences of going after your bank account?” you retort, he nodded. With a laugh, you shook your head. That was rich. Leaning forwards you hissed, “You owe me twice as much as we got from your fucking accounts.”

“I wasn’t done speaking,” Geoff said coldly, leaning forwards he pointed one of his tattooed fingers at your chest. “If I gave the signal, you’d have a bullet through your goddamn heart before you knew what fucking hit you.”

You glanced down and saw a tiny red dot dancing over your chest. A fucking sniper.

“The moment you died, I would have my boys on your crew faster than your blood could seep from your body,” he continued, “and all because you nearly killed one member of my crew. If you had shot or killed BrownMan instead? Well, let’s just say you wouldn’t have a sniper on you, but you would be sitting in a basement as the Vagabond taught you the meaning of fear.”

With your entire strength, you stopped yourself from reacting in any way. You wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

“Are you finished?” you asked, he seemed pissed you didn’t seem as afraid as you felt, but he leaned back. “Good, because now it’s my turn. You owe me a lot more than what I stole from you, Paul Fink. You owe my scam artist for every painting you stole from him. You are parading about acting as if your crew didn’t deserve the money I took, or the life I almost took. Well, guess what? You should’ve thought about this before you attacked my warehouse.” You pull out the message out of your pocket and toss it onto the table. “I love your calling card. Did you think of it?”

Geoff snatched up the piece of paper and opened it. His brows furrowed and he flicked his fingers. You glance down and saw the red dot disappear.

“We never attacked your warehouse, this message was delivered to this new crew. A warning to them,” Geoff placed the piece of paper down. You snorted.

“Oh please, Geoffrey. Don’t pull that bullshit, I bet all those other fucking attacks have been from your crew as well. Baiting the Bombshells along so you could kick our legs out from underneath us and-”

“I’m serious,” he interrupted. “I swear that on my crew.”

You bite your tongue from continuing on, you chew over your words carefully before speaking. “Let’s say I believed you, are you suggesting that this new crew was able to find our main warehouse, get into it without setting off security and steal nearly everything in one night?”

“Well, I’m not saying they’re fucking Santa Claus, but yes,” Geoff nodded and chewed on the side of his thumb. “Fuck! What’s the best way to rise to the top? Pit those higher than you against each other so they fall. Make us enemies so we’re not focusing on the true enemy.”

“Are you saying you’re my enemy?” you ask, picking up your wine and making a show of sniffing it.

Geoff simply laughs and takes the wine from your hand and sips it. He then takes a sip of his own wine and hands yours back to you. “Everyone is everyone’s enemy in this world.”

“We’ve been fighting for a couple months now,” you murmur, after the small moment of relief faded. He nodded, and then you look up, “Is the Vagabond in a safe place? I know if I was in their position, I would end his life so your crew would think he died because of the one who shot him.

“He’s safe,” Geoff nodded, and then paused, “Fucking shit.” Geoff leaped to his feet and threw down a couple hundred dollar bills. He jerks his thumb towards the doors. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” you demand, refusing to get up.

“To make a plan to get back at these assholes, one of my crew was shot because of those assholes,” Geoff grumbled. You sigh and stand up, he paused, “Well you shot the gun, but if they hadn’t gotten involved you wouldn’t have.”

After a quick elevator ride, you follow Geoff to his vehicle and climb into the passenger seat without hesitation. He peeled out of the parking lot, onto the highway, and into the parking lot of the penthouse in no time at all. He grabbed the car door handle and threw it open. You were just glad his anger wasn’t directed towards you anymore. He adjusted his collar before storming towards the elevator. You walk after him calmly, the ride up to the penthouse was quiet and tense.

He slams open the door and storms in, you take a moment to shut the door behind the two of you before he starts yelling. Not words, just yelling.

“Geoff,” you pipe up after a moment, “What are you doing?”

“I’m mad!” he yelled, and then kicked open the door to what you had assumed was their planning room. “Get your fucking asses in here!” he yelled, and then grabbed your arm and dragged you in. You rip your arm away from him and scowl at him. He doesn’t seem to even notice.

“What the hell is she doing here?” Michael blurted, and you turned your head slightly. “She fucking robbed us.”

“You guys attacked my warehouse. Quid pro quo.”

“These new fuckers have been pitting us against each other,” Geoff’s voice was higher pitched than normal and loud. “We need to come up with a plan to get back at them for this shit.”

“So, why do we need them?” Michael asked, walking up to a chair and dropping himself into it. “Let’s just find them, and drop a fucking nuke on them.”

“That’s why you need us,” you point out. “We have the finesse that you lot lack.”

“It’s nice to see you again,” Jack squeezed your arm before taking a seat. “You’ve always been humble.”

You smile back at her and then walk around the table to where Geoff was standing. He was furiously scribbling on the whiteboard and didn’t acknowledge your presence, so you turned to face his crew. They had all taken their seats, save one. You could imagine Vagabond sitting there, his creepy skull mask staring back at you. You pause and grab your purse.

“Oh, and to add to this truce,” you pull out the mask and drop it on the table. “The Vagabond can have his precious mask back. One of my crew thought it was best that he didn’t have his mask on when we dumped him at the hospital.”

“Did any of you see him without the mask fully?” Gavin asked, a creepy tone to his voice. You shake your head.

“It was dark,” you turn to Geoff. “Dollface has more information on the gang, but we stopped looking at them once our warehouse was hit.”

“Gavin,” Geoff spun around. “Get in contact with this Dollface-”

“I can just phone her,” you interrupt him. “I could just get my entire crew here...”

“No, that will take too long,” he waved his hands at you. “Now...I like Michael’s idea.”

“It’s stupid,” you retort. “Explode their MOB? Yes, that’s revenge...”

“What do you think we should do?” he asks, crossing his arms.

“We should-”

“No, stupid.”

You scowl at him, “Geoffrey.”

He says your full name, and you take a deep breath.

“Geoff, stop being difficult,” Jack speaks up. “We need the Bombshells help, so let her help.”

You keep your gaze level with Geoff. He shakes his head, “Fine. We’ll hear your idea, but after we plan out ours.”

With a sigh, you pull up a chair and settle down. Knowing the Fake AH Crew this was going to be over the top dramatics, which might work...but you wanted to hit this new crew with a lethal blow. You didn’t want them coming back and retaliating.

“So, if we get enough C4-” Michael began and you bit back a groan.

This was going to be a long night.


	12. Disaster Strikes

A laugh escaped your lips as you switch your phone to your other ear and continue to chop up some veggies for dinner. “Yes, your plants are doing fine. I watered them this morning after coming back from my friend’s apartment,” you reassured Ryan with a smile. “Though Edgar the First is looking a bit wilty.”

“Move it closer to the window and don’t water it tomorrow. Sometimes it goes a bit wonky if it has too much water and not enough sunlight,” Ryan said, his voice a bit distorted by the phone. One of his relatives died and he had to go back to Georgia for a funeral and to lend a hand to his parents. It was a last minute thing, you had woken up a few days after the heist against the Fake AH Crew and he had left a message on your phone. He gave you the information about his apartment and said he dropped off his key in your mailbox. When you had first entered his apartment you were shocked by the number of plants in his apartment. He had written names on their pots, funny little names, and said it helped him remember how to take care of them. Easier than having to remember a lot of plants types.

“How're your parents?” you ask, imputing as much sympathy into your voice as you can. He sighed.

“They’re doing alright,” he said, “A bit stressed out, but I’m taking my stepfather out for a hunt tomorrow, that should cheer him up a bit.”

You open your mouth to take the opportunity to find out more about his family, you didn’t know his father wasn’t his birth father. However, before you could, your apartment door burst open. Without thinking, you twist around and raise your arm to throw the kitchen knife. Jon held up his hands and skidded to a stop.

“What the hell was that?” Ryan asked, his voice changing tone.

“What the hell?” you blurt out at the same time, placing the knife down, “Hold on a sec,” you murmur to Ryan before lowering your cell phone and pressing it against your hip. “Jon?”

“It’s Meg and Lindsay,” he wheezed out, “They've been attacked.”

Your heart stopped, and you fumbled your phone back to your ear, “I have to go, I’ll call you back tonight. One of my friends was in a car crash,” you blurt out before hanging up. You shove your dishes, and food, into the sink before grabbing your jacket in a mad rush to follow Jon out of your apartment.

Caiti was waiting below with the car, and you jump into the passenger seat seconds after Jon got into the back.

“What happened?” you demand.

Jon shoved his hair back from his face, “They were walking downtown, and were attacked. We don’t know why. It’s fucking Los Santos. There was no rhyme or reason to this.”

“Until they wake up, we might not know,” Caiti said, chewing hard on her lip.

You slam your fist against the dashboard, “Where are they?”

“Jeremy got a text with a location and when he went, he found them. He rushed them back to the penthouse and called us. Your line was busy so we stopped by,” Jon said. You fumble your phone out of your jacket. If you lost either of them, you would personally gut whoever harmed them. Jeremy answered his phone after two rings.

“What’s happening? Are they stable?” you blurt out before he could say anything.

“I can’t do this by myself!” Jeremy shouted, his voice sounding distant. Speakerphone, “We need outside help. If it was only one person-”

“Fuck,” you clamp your eyes shut, “We’ll be there in two, get them ready to move.”

“Where?”

“I need to make a phone call, but either we’re getting help or we have to take them to the hospital.”

Taking anyone from your crew to the hospital was risky. Someone might recognize them, or they might do a bit of digging and realize that none of you actually exist in the Los Santos records. If it was the only option, you’d take it in a heartbeat. If your girls got arrested for being in the gang, you’d break them out the moment they were better. No one messed with your crew, and the moment Lindsay and Meg were better, you were going to show the fucks who did this who the fuck they were messing with.

After a hasty goodbye to Jeremy, you dial another number and press the phone against your ear. This time, the phone rung for a while longer before it was picked up. You, once again, didn’t bother waiting for an answer before speaking. “You have a medic on duty for your crew, right?”

“Uh...yeah,” Geoff replied, “Why?”

“Two of my girls were attacked, my medic can’t handle it alone. I’ll pay you if you give me your medics contact information,” you beg, “Please, Geoff.”

There was silence before you heard Geoff bark into the background, “Get Kerry here now! I want the surgery ready in five minutes! Move!” His voice grew closer, “Bring them in. Do you know who attacked them?”

“Fuck if I know,” you close your eyes and breath out relaxing slightly. “If they were hurt this fucking bad, it had to be someone who came after them with the intent of fucking them up.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jack’s voice came through the phone, “ Who was attacked?”

“LLTugg, and Dollface.”

“Fuck,” Jack said, “Where were they attacked?”

“Where were they?” you asked Jon, who had been paying close attention to the conversation. He said the street and you repeated it to Jack.

“Mogar and Vav are out right now, we’ll have them swing by there to see if there is anyone either lurking around or if there’s any evidence who attacked them,” Geoff promised, “Hurry.”

You hang up after a hasty goodbye and jump out of the car just as Caiti pulled to a stop. Jon is close behind you, just as you reach the elevator, the door to the stairs opens and Jeremy calls out to the both of you. He had carried Lindsay and Meg down the stairs to the bottom floor. They were both bandaged and wrapped in blankets to keep them from shifting around too much as they were moved.

They were loaded quickly into the car and within a minute your crew was peeling to the Fake AH Crew penthouse, a simple five-minute drive away. That drive still felt like it took forever.

You felt lightheaded as Caiti pulled into the garage beneath the penthouse, Geoff was waiting by the elevator with a shorter blonde kid and a taller dark-haired man you had never seen before. You step out of the car before Caiti even stops the car. “Get them out,” you rip open the back car door. The two nameless gentlemen hurry over to help Jon and Jeremy take Lindsay and Meg out of the car. Geoff opens the elevator doors and holds them open as everyone hurries in. The blonde guy checking their vitals as the elevator shot upwards to the floor below the penthouse.

“We own this floor,” Geoff explained when Jeremy tensed as the doors opened.

“This way,” the shorter guy jerked his chin as the taller of the two hoisted Meg up. Jeremy carefully picked Lindsay up and hurried after the blonde. You knew you’d be in the way, but you still followed closely behind. The room they entered was really a makeshift hospital room. A couple of stretchers littered the room, surrounded by various medical equipment. You didn’t care how they got them, or what they did, as long as Lindsay and Meg were okay. “Did you figure out the majority of their injuries?”

“Meg got the brunt of it,” Jeremy explained quickly carefully placing Lindsay onto one of the stretchers, “A bunch of flesh wounds, but she got shot in the side. A head injury too. Lindsay has a head injury, but she suffered more flesh wounds and less deep wounds. Though she does have a broken wrist.”

“We’ll focus on the bullet wound, you focus on Lindsay,” the darker haired man ordered, a British accent to his voice. You wanted to help, more than anything. However, you knew shit about medical care. You stood with your hands slightly lifted, eyes snapping back and forth between your two best friends. Panic was growing in your chest when the man placed a hand on your shoulder, “We won’t let anything happen to them.”

“Kerry and Dan both have years of experience patching us up, and Jeremy won’t leave their side,” Geoff said, and then waved towards the door, “ We’ll be in the way.”

“I know,” you said, but didn’t move. Geoff turned you around and started leading you to the door when Michael steps in.

“Yo, Geoff, there was nothing-” he stopped, eyes looking past the two of you. His mouth dropped and for a moment he didn’t move.

“Micool?” Gavin reached forwards to touch his friend, but Michael burst past you. You whip around to snap at him to get away from your girls, but he reached out and cupped Lindsay’s cheek.

“No! No! Fuck this!” Michael shouted, eyes full of rage and fear, “Is she going to be okay? Who the fuck hurt her!”

“Michael, calm down-” Kerry said, but Michael wheeled around.

“Fuck you, Kerry. Don’t tell me to calm down. I don’t want to calm down. I want fucking names. I want addresses, and I want their heads,” Michael snarled, shoving a finger towards Lindsay. “Who the fuck dared to lay a finger on her?”

“What the hell?” Geoff said, “Why do you care?”

“She’s my fucking girlfriend,” Michael wheeled around to Geoff, “Why the fuck else would I care?”

Geoff’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth popped open. He turned to you, “Did you know?”

You shake your head, but remember your conversation with Meg a couple months passed. Michael and Lindsay knew each other before Bombshells was ever formed before Geoff and Jack officially created the FAHC. “We’ll catch these bastards, Michael,” you promise, the anger in your stomach growing larger and hotter. “Caiti, stay here to help them.”

“Okay, everyone besides medics, out!” Jack ordered, “You’re just getting in the way.”

“I’m not going fucking anywhere,” Michael snarled, “Not until we have a plan to cut the dicks off these assholes.”

You turn and stride out of the room, dragging Jon along behind you. You needed to see the scene of the attack for yourself. Michael and Gavin only did a quick pass over, you wanted to take it in yourself. Maybe there was a security camera that would show what had happened, a quick flash of a face, or the getaway car. Anything.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Geoff said, following behind you. You mash the elevator button, willing it to get to the floor faster.

“Where do you think?”

“This is clearly a setup,” Geoff stepped in front of the elevator door, “Now the only reason your getting in this elevator is to go up to the penthouse and to the planning room so we can make a suitable plan together. If Michael is dating LLTuggs or Lindsay, then we are going to help find these motherfuckers.”

“I don’t care whether you think you are obligated to help or not, Geoff, I’m in charge of my crew and I’m going to find them,” you snap jabbing a finger into his chest.

“Getting yourself killed or kidnapped won’t help anyone, we need a plan-”

“Fuck planning, I want blood,” the elevator door slid open and you went to brush past him when he grabbed your arm and threw you backward. You slammed into Jon, who quickly stabled you.

“No. You are not leaving this building, I will not allow you to get yourself killed,” he said and jerked his chin. Gavin grabbed your arm and started pulling you towards one of the rooms. “If I need to constrain you, I will. She’s not to come out until we have a plan.”

Jon let out a disbelieving laugh, “Are you kidding me?”

You yank your arm away from Gavin, “This is bullshit, Geoff.”

“We’re going, and you can’t stop us,” Jon placed his hand on your back but before either of you could move for the elevator again, your arms were restrained behind your back. You instantly struggled, but with a sharp tug, your arm flared with intense pain.

“Lock them in a room,” Geoff ordered, and Gavin opened one of the doors and whoever was restraining you shoved you into the room. Jon was forcibly shoved in after you, and Caiti followed a second later. The door shut and locked from the outside, leaving the three of you in the darkness of the room.


	13. The Kingpins

How dare he? How fucking dare he lock you in a room? While your crew- no fuck that, your best fucking friends were in critical condition. The room contained a single fucking chair, and you were damn sure this was their interrogation room. The only room in the building, you assumed, that could be locked from outside. Caiti could quickly pick the lock if she had thought to bring her lockpick set.

Fuck.

“We need to just calm down, I think Ramsey is right,” Caiti said, keeping her voice calm, “If we just go out for blood, we’ll end up dead and no help to Lindsay and Meg.”

“So, what? We let them run us into hiding? Walk all over us and accept it?” Jon snorted, “I might not be a fighter, but we have to stand up for our crew.”

“We’ll wait until they’re healed up, and then we’ll go and kick their teeth in,” Caiti said, her voice still calm. Your head lifted to stare at her in shock. She offered you a small smile, “I might not like these illegal activities...but I’m not naive, and I’m not stupid. We disappear from the gang life, and it’ll follow us. We’d not be safe, we need to ease ourselves out slowly, and not when another crew is out for our blood. We need to get rid of this new crew, and then we can start trying to get out of this risky business.”

“I’ve been in this business far too long,” you shake your head and take a deep breath, “What do you think happened to the Cockbites? Out of the original members, only Geoff and Burnie are alive or at least known to be alive. The rest have been killed or faked their deaths just so they could get out of this life and start a new one. They disbanded when I was twelve, that was many, many, years ago now. If it wasn’t for the fact that Geoff is the leader of the FAHC he’d probably be in the bottom of the ocean by now.”

“Where is Burnie?” Jon frowned, “How do you know he’s alive?”

“He and his girlfriend, Ashley, are traveling around the world as a modern day Bonnie and Clyde. Getting into bigger shit than he could ever do here,” you drop down onto the chair that the others had avoided sitting in like the plague. It was almost a relief that they were pulling the conversation away from Lindsay and Meg, if you had to sit in this damn room and worry yourself sick about them, you would go insane.

An hour went by as you explained what happened to the rest of the Cockbites. Matt tried to start a legit company, he got it off the ground and it was steadily growing in popularity, but then he was assassinated. Gus had died in an airplane accident, which had been suspected of foul play but they couldn’t find any proof. Joel had one day disappeared, but you had heard rumors that he had become homeless before he disappeared. You assumed he was either murdered or died in a remote corner of Los Santos.

You only knew Burnie because of Ashley, and Geoff because of Jack.

As if thinking of the woman summoned her, the door to the room clicked unlocked and when it opened Jack gave you guys a sympathetic smile. “The girls are in a stable condition.”

You waste no time bursting out of your chair and past Jack. You didn’t care about Jack’s words, you needed to see this for yourself.

Jeremy was sitting on a chair beside Meg’s bed, while Michael occupied a spot beside Lindsay. They were both breathing, and both sleeping. Bandages covered a good portion of their bodies, but you could smell the metallic scent of blood and the sharp sting of antiseptic.

You walk stiffly over to Lindsay, brushing a piece of her hair from her face and then squeezed her hand. You meet Michael’s eyes, and he presses his mouth together firmly and you nod. He wanted revenge as much as you did, maybe even more. He’d get it. You move over to Meg and repeat the same gestures. Their bodies were bruising now, and you could see the worst of the injuries just starting to peek through, and your anger was just mounting. It felt like you were trapped trying to contain your anger when all you wanted to do was punch something.

Jeremy places a chair behind you before you even realized he had gotten up, and you sit down heavily. He places his hands on your shoulders and squeezes them. One of your hands covers his and squeezes it back. If you could scream and cry and throw a fit right now, you would, but you couldn’t. Not in the middle of the Fake AH penthouse. Not in front of Michael. Not in front of even your own crew. You wanted to be in control of the situation even if you weren’t.

You needed to be.

What felt like minutes passing by turned into hours, and Jack peeked her head into the room softly calling your name. “Geoff wants to talk to you when you have a minute.”

“Geoff can wait-” Jeremy started to snap back, but you stand up.

“I need to stretch my legs,” you interrupt him, giving him a partially thankful look. He knew when to be the muscle and you were glad that he was willing to sass back at another crew for your sake. However, sitting in the cramped room with nothing but negative thoughts was becoming stifling and you needed to get out for a moment.

Before you can say anything, Caiti takes over your seat, reaching forwards and taking Meg’s hand into her own. Jan leans up next to the door and gives you a nod. Michael even gave you have a look before turning his attention back to his girlfriend. They’d make sure nothing happened to your girls while you were away, and they would tell you the moment they woke up.

You step out of the room and Jack leads you to the elevator. Once on, she pulls you into a hug. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine,” you murmur your response, giving her a quick hug back. IT was only one floor.

“Don’t be afraid to tell Geoff to fuck off if he steps out of line, this might be his penthouse, but those are your girls. You are entitled to protecting them and avenging them,” Jack didn’t let go of your arms until you nodded. Jeremy gave you a confused look, but the doors open before you could question him.

Geoff was standing in the living room, a glass of whiskey in his hand, and staring out the window. He half-turned when you entered, and gestures to the bar. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure...Jon burst into my apartment this morning and told me that they were attacked,” you explained as you head over to the bar and mixing yourself a drink. “All I know is I need to figure out who the fuck did this.”

“We got a text from you telling us to go to an address, I was across town, and Jon and Caiti in the middle of a meeting so Tuggs and Dollface went,” Jeremy spoke up, and you fumbled your glass.

“What?”

“I-”

“What number?” you demand, slamming the glass on the table. The drink splashed out onto your hand but you simply wiped it on your pants. Jeremy stuttered in shock of your fury but you got the number of your personal phone. “What time?”

“Early this morning, about an hour before I showed up and found them,” Jeremy pulled out his phone and showed you the text. You resist the urge to scream and slam his phone into the ground.

“I wasn’t home yet,” you hand him back his phone and start to pace. “I left your place, and swung by the garage,” you lie, “before heading home. I need to see the security feeds from my apartment.”

“I got it!” Gavin announced, plopping down onto the couch and opening a laptop. He opened a few programs, “Where’s your apartment?”

You hesitate, but if someone else knew where your apartment was you had to move regardless. You tell him and the security info before sending a quick text to the B-Team to get all your things and move them to one of the warehouses until you get a new apartment. You had to remember to tell Ryan that your lease was up or some bullshit about why you moved.

Gavin was into your apartment security feed before you finished sending the message off and rewound to the previous night. “You need a better security system, I got into that easier than the Maze banks security,” he gloated and then sped up the time. You and Jeremy were chilling at your apartment, in the beginning, gaming before you got a text and left with him. You remember you went to a party with Jeremy, and the two of you stole over twenty thousand dollars of items last night during the party. The pros of crashing parties in upper Vinewood. After that, you went to his house for the night.

Thank god you did.

Jeremy grabbed your arm when the feed showed two armed men break into your apartment and sweep throughout it. They only opened the window to the fire escape before scoping out hiding locations and waiting. Your heart stopped. If you and Jeremy had gone to your place, you would either be dead on the floor of your apartment or taken hostage.

After eight hours, one of them sighed and stood up, the sound shitty and crackly. “This is no use, let’s get out of here.”

“It’s almost morning, we should wait a bit longer,” the other pressed, “Come on.”

“The neighbours will be waking up soon and if we don’t get the hell out they’ll see two armed men leaving. I’d rather not draw attention from the cops,” the first man closed the window quietly and locked it. Just as you left it. He said something that wasn’t picked up by the audio.

“We need to get something out of this,” the shorter of the two complained, “Boss’ll be pissed.”

“What will we get? This woman isn’t a drug idle prostitute, she’s going to come through that door and react instantly to us in here. We’ve been awake all night, and she probably has had at least a couple hours sleep. Let’s get out of here before she kicks our asses and then decides that the Fake AH Crew could use two playthings to keep the Vagabond entertained.”

“Let’s figure out where her crewmates are-”

“Our mission was to get her, not her crew.”

“But her crewmates are hot, I bet we can find them and-”

“Want me to tell you something?” the larger twisted around, “If you even think about going after women in a predatory way, I will personally gut you. If I don’t get my hands on you, she will. She will do a lot worse than I could, she has a lot more resources. I can deal with murder, but what you’re proposing? Whatever it is, I draw the line. Now get in the fucking car or I will leave you here to deal with her wrath.”

“Why are you scared of her?”

“Why are you not?” the man stormed out of the apartment, leaving the shorter one alone.

He immediately turned and headed into your bedroom, Gavin flicked the camera over to the bedroom camera and the man picked up the charging phone and sent a quick message. He was on the phone longer than it would take to send a group message to five people, and then he was out of the apartment. Ten minutes later, you walk in and go to grab your phone.

You remember what you opened your phone to.

“I want him dead,” you blurt out, “No, I need him here now. I need to show him why the fuck he should’ve been scared of me.”

Your photo gallery was open. A picture of Ryan you had snapped on the pier. His contact photo.

“I need to get back to my apartment, I need my phone,” you plead with Geoff. “I need to know what else he looked at.”

You knew, but you didn’t want that phone out of your hands ever again. Your hands start to shake, and you feel sick to your stomach. No. Ryan was safe he was in Georgia. Jeremy pulled you into a hug, calming you down. Geoff stepped forwards, a concerned look on his face, but then his phone started to ring loudly.

He answers it without thinking, and you press your face into Jeremy’s shoulder. Trying your hardest to get control of your emotions. You were stressed, angry, frustrated, sad. It was getting too much.

Geoff turns around, “Who the fuck are you?”

You lift your head up and saw Geoff’s look of irritation. His eyes brows shot up and he paused, “Well, I think that you shouldn’t be calling me about that- She’s not here what the hell are you- Don’t fucking interrupt me. She’s not here.” Another pause, and then he looks around the room. “How the fuck down you have cameras in here? Fine, I’ll put you on speaker phone.”

He lowers the phone and mouths the word you didn’t want him to say.

Kingpins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to MadQueenCaroline for coming up with the opposing crew name, and nicknames for some of the characters that are in the Kingpins! You rock!


	14. Love Hurts

“Hello? Oh, good. It’s good to finally talk to you both,” the man laughed, “Though I didn’t think The Bombshells would run to the Fake AH Crew so fast! Who is sucking whose dick?”

“Excuse me?” you snap, stepping away from Jeremy. “You better watch your goddamn mouth-”

“Or what?” the man’s voice changed instantly, “Better watch your threats, Miss, I’ve sent men after your friends once already. I can easily do so again. You both think you’re untouchable, but you’re human and you will be pulled down to the rest of our levels. I’m sending you both over some rather...personal emails for you to ponder your mortality.”

Jack’s face looked like she was hearing a ghost, her face pale white. Geoff reached over and placed his hand on her back. He sat down in one of the chairs and took the laptop from Gavin. You didn’t bother opening your email; you didn’t want to see what sort of sway he held over you yet. Geoff’s face tightened in anger, and you walked around to peer over his shoulder. He was flipping through photo after photo of all of his crew doing day to day things. Not even crew related. Just hanging out, participating in hobbies, menial tasks.

“The hardest one to find was Jack; he is very attached to his work.”

“She is very attached to her work,” Geoff snarled, slamming the laptop lid closed. “I am going to tell you once, you mother fucker.”

Jack placed a hand on Geoff’s shoulder but said nothing.

“It’s a shame, really. That he decided to become a woman, they’re the weaker sex after all,” the man dismissed Geoff’s threat.

“Yet, The Bombshells are a nearly complete female group and are one of the top crews in the entire city, and the second in command of the FAHC is a woman,” Geoff retorted sharply, “She alone is worth fifty of your men.”

“The top crew is nearly all men, and the leader of the Fake AH Crew is a man. Can’t argue with the obvious facts, can we?’

“What do you want?” you demand, “You didn’t just call to be an asshole did you? Obviously, we already know that.”

He was silent for a moment, and you could almost hear him grinding his teeth. “Check your email and I’ll continue the conversation.”

“If I don’t?”

“Then I’ll hang up and you’ll find something on your doorstep tomorrow.”

You don’t know what the hell he was talking about, but you see Gavin pick up the laptop and open it. You look around the room. Where the hell were the cameras? “It’s obviously pictures of my crew in the same sort of positions Geoff’s were in,” you stall, “Why should I bother? Get to the point.”

“The point is in your photos,” he stressed an almost sick sense of excitement in his tone.

“Do you get off from manipulating people?” you ask, taking out your phone. Gavin closed the laptop and got up. He found all of the cameras by the time you opened up your email.

“How clever, you found my cameras,” he mocked, “took you long enough.”

“Oh, not really. I didn’t care until Geoff told me to do it,” Gavin shrugged his shoulders, “Your equipment is shite.”

Your heart stops and the rest of the conversation is lost to you as you flip through the photos. All of them were of you and Ryan. Photos from your phone or his.

How did he have Ryan’s photos?

“From the stunned silence, I assume you got them? Good. Geoff, I sent you another photo, please take a look at it.”

Geoff begrudgingly opened up the laptop once again and pulled up the newly arrived photo. You saw it and you snapped. Jeremy slammed his hand over your mouth before you could scream at the bastard. You struggle against his grip, clawing at his hand hard enough to draw blood.

You wanted this assholes blood. You wanted to kill him.

He had Ryan.

He had Ryan.

Ryan was in danger.

You did this.

All your fucking fault.

The photo was Ryan tied to a chair, bloody and bruised. Today’s newspaper held up in the corner.

So cliché, but it worked.

You were furious.

“Say goodbye to those you love,” Geoff murmured, “Because you are going to be dead before the year is over. You hurt innocent people? I slice your goddamn throat open.”

“No, because I have a bargaining token,” the other man chuckled before saying your name. “I’ll give you a week to take your crew and disappear. If you’re still here by the end of the week? Well, for each week that you’re not gone, I’ll take one finger from him. After ten weeks? Well, I’ll work my way up slowly. I’ll call you with a location to get him when you’ve dropped all contact with the Fake AH Crew.”

The line went dead.

You slam your elbow into Jeremy’s gut and his grip loosens enough for you to break free from him.

He tries to grab you again, but you shove him away hard enough that he crashes into the bar and the glass shelves shatter. He cries out your name, “Calm down! We’ll figure this out!”

“I am done!” you scream, “I don’t want to calm down. I want his head on a fucking pike. I want to tear him apart with my fucking bare hands. He hurt my girls, he threatens my fucking crew. He is going after people I love and everyone wants me to sit around twiddling my thumbs!” you pick up Geoff’s phone and whip it against the wall. It cracks and Geoff grabs your arms and slams you against the wall. It nearly scares the anger right out of you, but you struggle against his grip. “Get your fucking hands off of me!”

“Who the fuck is that man?” he asks, deadly calm, even though his fingers dug painfully into your arms.

You don’t care about keeping up pretenses, lying, or hiding it anymore. “Ryan!” you snarl, “My boyfriend. He’s supposed to be in fucking Georgia right now. Do you need his fucking address and occupation? Because everyone else apparently knows it.”

“Who is he?” Geoff asks again.

“I told you!” you roar and shove him backward; he trips over the coffee table, and smashes his head against the corner of the couch. For a tense moment, the Fake AH Crew turned to you ready to tear you apart for attacking their leader. You straightened your back, “I don’t know what your fucking deal with knowing who he is, Geoff. He is innocent, and I love him. If you get in my fucking way, I will not hesitate to treat you like my enemy.”

Geoff shakes his head and slowly pulls himself up. “Alright,” he takes a deep breath, “Fine. This is what we’re going to do. You are going to disappear, and when he sends you the location, we’ll both go and kill this asshole and get Ryan back with all his fingers.”

Jeremy shifts awkwardly, “Look, I think I should tell you something-”

You ignore him, “We can’t stay here then,” you address Geoff this time. The tension between the two of you still presents and you could feel it starting to get to you. You needed to unwind and quickly. “Jeremy, are the girls able to be moved?”

“No they can’t, but I need to talk to you-”

“Then we need to go to one of our safe houses as far away from the city as possible, as soon as possible. Jon will stay here to keep an eye on them, everyone else will leave,” you order, “I’ll let B-Team know to disappear as well. Geoff, you know how to contact me.”

“I’ll also be billing you for the damages,” he gestured behind you.

“Add it to my tab then,” you say tensely, before turning and marching out of the room.


	15. Call Me Diamond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Just to let you know next weeks chapter will be on schedule but the chapter for the 22nd will be delayed a day! I will be out of town and won't be able to post!
> 
> Also, I will be starting another story called 'Open Road' which will be posted on Fridays! (I am pretty sure I will start uploading the 26th because I don't want to be throwing off because I'm leaving for a 5 day trip on the 18th! We'll see tho!)

The next week sped by, and you were driving to the location sent to you by The Kingpins leader. You had demanded to get a picture of Ryan alive before you came out, and he had all his fingers, but he looked beaten and broken even more than before. Jeremy had kept trying to tell you something the entire week, but you didn’t want to hear it. You were furious and wanted to get Ryan safe so you could tear this bastard a new one.

Gavin had temporarily erased all data of your crew from Los Santos, it was like none of you ever existed.

The Fake AH Crew was already at the location. Jeremy and Caiti were in the car with you. You disagreed with the negotiation term that you arrive alone. You weren’t stupid after all, he eventually agreed and allowed you to bring two of your crew with you. Jon was manning the coms back at the safehouse, making sure you were updated on the girls’ progress.

You twist the keys and turned off the ignition. Caiti pulled her mask down over her head, and Jeremy handed her a pistol which she tucked into her jacket. They both had automatic firearms as well, but you only had two pistols hidden beneath your jacket. You took a deep breath before tugging your mask down as well, there was no chance you were letting Ryan know it was you.

Of course, after this, you couldn’t see Ryan anymore. You were going to cut off all contact with him. You weren’t taking any more damn chances.

The location was an empty office building that was abandoned when the previous business’ lease had run out. It had an upper floor with offices looking down on the main floor where the exchange would happen. You lead the group into the building, and once you entered the room properly, you were treated to a scene that was so action movie cliche you almost laughed. If it wasn't for the fact that your boyfriend was on his knees with a bag covering his face, you would’ve.

“Ah, good,” one of the men turned around and clapped his hands together. “We ran through the system and you truly did disappear. As promised, James Wood with all his fingers intact.”

“How do we know that’s him?” Jeremy spoke up, jerking his rifle towards the men. “Take the bag off his head.”

“Oh! You hurt me!” the man clasped a hand over his chest, “Can’t you just take my word?”

“We’re not stupid, we know how these things go down.”

“Clubs, take off his hood,” the man snapped his fingers. One of the masked men reached down and pulled the hood off his head. Ryan squinted in the lights and looked around. His eyes were assessing and focused, more so than you thought he'd look. You thought he’d look confused and scared. His eyes landed on your crew and his head tilted slightly.

He didn’t know who you were.

“Now, who the fuck are we dealing with? We thought your leader would be here?” Jeremy demanded, and you crossed your arms. Something was weird with this situation. You couldn't put your thumb on it.

“I am,” the man hoisted Ryan to his feet, “My crew calls me Diamond.”

The way the man acted and the way he spoke made you think of the man of the phone. However, it wasn’t exact. There was something off and it was pissing you off. He was either not the true ‘Diamond’ or he was hiding something. You looked at Clubs, his build was familiar. He was the man in your apartment, the one who threatened the smaller one about going after your crew. You lean over and murmur something to Jeremy. He shifted slightly, but he didn’t say anything at first. You needed Ryan on your side before the others reacted, he was what mattered here. All that mattered.

“Fine, send him over. We held our end of the bargain, now-”

“Now, I was thinking about that,” ‘Diamond’ tapped his fingers against his leg and then pointed at Ryan, “This man is completely helpless, but he’s the only thing keeping you from killing us. Once we hand him over...you can understand my concern.”

“We had a deal,” Caiti barked out, a slight tone of desperation in her tone, “Give us the man, and we’ll leave Los Santos for good.”

“No, the way to get rid of you is to make you react from your heart instead of your mind,” ‘Diamond’ shoved Ryan towards the others. You saw Clubs’ head snap towards ‘Diamond’, and that one movement told you all you needed to know. One of them raised his gun to Ryan’’s temple. Before the pistol could touch against Ryan’s skin, the offender’s eye exploded.

“R&R,” a voice murmured through your earpiece before you dove forwards. Jeremy slammed into you just as a volley of machine bullets tore through the space where you had just been. As your hip cracks against the floor, you whip out your pistols and shoot. You take out two of the guards' legs, and Ray or whoever was supporting you above took them down completely. Diamond was nowhere to be seen as the Fake AH Crew covered the exits and took out anyone attempting to escape.

Your hip ached as Jeremy helped you to your feet.

“Fuck that,” you groan, and he laughed and took out someone twirling around to shoot at the two of you.

“Come on, let’s show these assholes just what mayhem we can cause,” he grinned, “Just like old times.”

“Old times?” you grumble back, “We’re not that old.”

You take out another man racing for the stairs to get a higher vantage point.

It was pure chaos. Men you didn’t even know where in the building swarmed in, taking cover and covering the building with an explosion of bullets. You yank Jeremy into cover as Caiti darted up the stairs. You wanted to tell her to get down, but you didn’t want to draw attention to her.

Geoff’s voice crackled through your earpiece, “Stay down! Michael is lining up a shot.”

You open your mouth to ask him what he meant but there was a loud noise before the opposite side of the building exploded and sent the Kingpin goons flying through the air, some on fire and some dead before they even hit the ground.

You peek out of your cover and see Ryan lying on the ground covering his head. You knew jumping out to get him would get you killed, so you ask the Fake AH Crew to get Ryan into some cover. Jack changed her cover and started calling for Ryan. You fire off a few shots and saw Ryan crawling towards Jack slowly.

Soon, the room was empty save for yourself, Caiti, Jeremy, Ryan, and the Fake AH Crew. You wipe some blood off of your jaw and smear it on Jeremy’s jacket. He gave you an offended look, and you felt your mouth curl up into a smile despite everything. There was nothing like living through a firefight to get the blood pumping and your body feeling light and alleviated for a few moments.

Ray darted down the stairs, swinging his backpack over his shoulder. He stopped beside you guys.

“Nice shot,” Jeremy complimented, “I might have nightmares now.”

Ray snorted, “You want to see nightmare inducing, just wait till you see someone open their mouth before getting shot through the back of their throat. That shit is fucking cray,” he said and then his eyes scanned the room. “Hey, where’d the main asshole go?”

Turning around, your eyes did a sweep of the room. Ryan was standing over top of the guard's bodies, gun in his hand. Diamond was lying in the bodies, staring up at him with defiant eyes. You take a step forward, but Ryan bent down and started murmuring something to the man. A bad feeling developed in your gut and you hesitated.

“If you threaten someone,” Ryan’s voice raised, pulling a knife out off the man’s belt, “You need to go through with it. See?” he grabbed the man’s hand and with no hesitation slammed the knife down in the center of the man's hand, “Now what’s weird about this is you can still move your fingers,” he explained, as the man's mouth opened and screamed. You took a step back. Ryan removed the knife by ripping it towards himself, tearing the man’s hand open. The screaming got worse, and blood poured out of the man’s wound. “Taking fingers is fun and all, but this? This is art,” he grabbed the man’s other hand and repeated the process.

“WHo the fuck are you!” the man cried out. Ryan reached up and touched the man’s face.

“Why does it matter? You’re about to pass out from blood loss and shock. If it heals your soul, then I will tell you. The name is Vagabond, and you picked the wrong man to torture and threaten. I haven’t decided if you should die yet, see. You threatened someone very precious to me, and if I let you live you might kill her.”

“I won’t!” The man sobbed, Ryan adjusted the man’s fingers and the man’s voice skyrocketed in pitch, “Please!” Ryan didn’t listen to the plea and sliced the knife through the middle knuckle of the pointer finger.

“What was that?” Ryan asked, “I didn’t hear you.”

“Please-”

You raise your gun and pull the trigger. The man’s pleading was cut short. A bullet in his temple. There was a moment of silence before Ryan started to turn to look at you. Ray placed a hand on your shoulder and pulled you behind him before walking towards the man. The Fake AH Crew swarmed around him before he could finish, and Geoff took the weapons out of his hands.

You felt nothing.

Then all at once, you felt your heartbreak.


	16. Betrayal

Your hand is shaking, still clutching the gun. Jeremy gentle removes the gun from your grip, but when you look at him, he’s avoiding your gaze. He knew what Ryan looked like...he was the one to remove the Vagabond’s mask after you had shot him. The confrontation afterward, him giving you odd looks whenever you were too friendly with the Fake AH Crew.

“You knew,” you whispered, and took a step away from him.

“Look, I was trying to tell you,” he reached out to grab your arm but you slap his hand out of the way. If he wasn’t wearing a mask, you would punch him. How could he?

“How did they even get you?” Geoff demanded, tearing you away from Jeremy. Ryan ran a hand through his hair.

“I was at a safe house and they broke in, I couldn’t exactly fight back as good as I normally could. I kind of got a hole in my chest,” he laughed awkwardly, rubbing his chest. Then a realization flashed over his face, “I need one of your phones.”

“Why?” Michael asked, but someone still pulled out their phone and handed it to him.

“I just need it,” he snatched the phone away and you waited long enough to hear him leave you a voicemail. “I’m going to be in Georgia a bit longer, things got a bit messy at home.”

Your hands curl into a fist, but you turn and take Caiti’s arm and guide her towards the exit. Leaving Jeremy behind, you were furious. You were upset. You wanted to curl up underneath your blankets and cry. How dare he? He lied to you, and he had the audacity to lie right in front of your face. He was a murderer, he tortured people. He clearly enjoyed it, and that made it all worse. 

Jeremy called out your name, and you kept walking.

He could find his own way back to the safe house.

Caiti stops and turns back, “Come on JD-” she pauses, but you keep walking. Throwing open the door, police sirens were already heading towards the location, and you didn’t feel like dealing with the police tonight. You had already dealt with enough.

You tear open the car door and drop heavily into the driver’s seat. Caiti climbs into the passenger seat, but her eyes are on something else. You go to slam the car door shut but it stops short. You yank again but it doesn’t budge. You twist your head around to see what the hell was stopping it, and your heart stopped.

Ryan stared down at you, face covered in bruises and blood, some his some not. When he raised his fingers, you saw them shaking violently as he reached towards your face. Looks of anger, fear, and questioning swirled around his face. He mumbled your name in question, and his fingers grasped at the edge of your mask.

Anger swelled in your stomach, and you twist in the seat and slammed your foot into his gut. He doubled over, fingers yanking the mask further down your face. You kicked once more and threw him off balance, giving you enough time to yank the car door closed and slam on the gas. 

Caiti yelped in surprise, but you tear the mask from your face and throw caution to the wind.

You honestly had no idea where you were going. You wanted to be anywhere but where you were. You had nowhere to call home anymore, and there was no safe house that you felt safe in any longer. How much did ‘Diamond’ know about your life?

How much could he find out?

When you finally pulled over, your chest was heaving and your vision swam with tears.

“Oh, no,” Caiti murmured, reaching over and rubbing your shoulder, “Sweetie...”

You slammed your hand into the steering wheel.

“Come here,” she leaned over, pulling you into a hug. “You can cry.”

“Where did you go?” Geoff’s voice crackled through your earpiece. You snap straight up and rip the piece out of your ear. After rolling down the window, you slammed it down onto the pavement and took off again.

This time, you pulled into the Fake AH Crew penthouse parking stalls and wiped at your face. Caiti squeezed your arm as you stopped the engine. “Why don’t we go to one of the safe houses?”

“Lindsay and Meg,” you said, “I need to check on them.”

There were still empty spots in the garage, and you took confidence in that they were still out. You took the elevator up to the second highest level and slipped into the impromptu hospital room. Meg and Lindsay were both awake.

You hurried over, standing between their beds, unable to speak and overcome with happiness that they were awake.

“Where are we?” Meg croaked out, her voice raw from underuse.

“In the Fake AH Crew penthouse,” Caiti explained, sitting at the foot of Meg’s bed, “They helped us. There was an...incident however.”

“Incident?” Lindsay piped up, “What happened?”

You open and then close your mouth. Jon entered the room and hurried over. He pulled you into a tight hug.

“What happened?” Meg asked, sitting up.

You didn’t want to cry in front of your entire crew, but the tears just burst from your eyes. You pressed your face against Jon’s shoulder, hoping it’d stop the tears from overflowing. He rubbed your back, murmuring comforting words to you, and guided you over to Lindsay’s bed. Lindsay immediately sits up and pulls you into her arms. 

Jon rubbed your back as you sobbed into Lindsay’s shoulder instead.

You couldn’t believe it.

He lied to you about everything. Where he was, what he did, who he was. Everything.

Geoff knew. Jeremy knew. They all fucking knew and kept it from you.

You thought you had met someone worth leaving all this shit for, and all it did was bring your further and further into the darkness. What was worse? He was a full-blown serial killer. He murdered people for fun. He was brutal and sadistic. 

All those times when he promised he’d hurt anyone who harmed you turned sour in your stomach, and you sobbed harder into Lindsay’s shoulder.

“What happened?” Meg asked again after your tears slowed, and you peeled yourself off of Lindsay and wiped your sticky cheeks off on your sleeves.

“You two were attacked,” you explained, your voice creaky and thick with tears, “We couldn’t save you alone, so we asked the Fake AH Crew for help and they gave us it. The new crew, the Kingpins, were behind the attack and-”

“No,” Meg shook her head, “Why are you crying? I know it’s not because we were beat up.”

“Yeah,” Lindsay rubbed your arm, “We’ve been hurt worse before and we came out of it with you complaining how we need to take self-defense courses.”

You wanted to brush it off, but you blurt it out before you could stop yourself, “My boyfriend is the fucking Vagabond.”

“What!” Meg shouted, and then cursed and pressed a hand against her stomach, “What the fuck do you mean?”

You stood up and paced the room, explaining how Diamond had threatened the Bombshells and then kidnapped Ryan. Then the rescue mission and how you figured out who he truly was.

“I know I should’ve let you do a background check on him,” you admit, looking at Meg, “But I just...I hoped...”

“I know,” Meg murmured, “We all know...I mean, as important as the crew is to you, we all know that you’d rather have a different life. I hoped he would be the one for you...”

“God that’s cheesy as shit,” Lindsay laughed, and then gave you a sympathetic look, “You should talk to him about it, don’t just...toss aside your relationship. Michael and I are from two separate crews and we’ve made due.”

“It’s not that he’s...a criminal...I mean...my last boyfriend was…is a criminal,” you shove your hands through your hair. “It’s...I don’t know how much was real, and how much he knew of me, and he’s murdered people with the same goddamn hands that touch me! Have you not seen the murders committed by him? How can I ever look at him the same way again? He’s lied about everything! Our relationship is based on falsehoods and...and I can’t...”

“Fuck him then,” Jon stood up, “What have you told him about you?”

“My parents are dead, and I have lived in Los Santos my entire life, and I have sporadic work hours,” you murmur, and he pointed at you.

“You haven’t lied about a fucking thing, and if he dares to play the blame game, I’ll kick his ass myself,” he promised, and then stuck his pinky finger towards you, “and I’ll swear on that.”

You forced a laugh and you place your hand over his, “I’m pretty sure you’d lose that fight, you’re not a fighter, Jon.”

“I’d say you should’ve shown me him, I can smell a liar from a mile away but...you know, I can’t,” the corner of his mouth rose and a genuine laugh bubbled from your lips this time. The smile grew wider and he placed his arm on your shoulder, “I did hear you got a headshot from across the room. Congrats on that.”

“With what?” Meg asked, excitement in her voice.

“A pistol,” Caiti boasted for you, “It was badass.”

“Enough about me,” you waved Jon away, feeling slightly lighter than you did when you entered the room. “How are you girls feeling? Is there anything I can get for you? Do you need me to get the medic? How ‘bout some water?”

“We’re fine,” Lindsay shook her head, “Just tired...but I feel like I’ve been sleeping for years.”

“Where’s Jeremy?” Meg asked, and you shake your head.

“He knew.”

“Knew what?”

You shake your head again, “You guys missed the Game of Thrones finale, I missed it come to think of it,” you point out, “Let’s push their beds together and watch it?”

Meg gave you a look saying she wasn’t going to drop it, but Jon and you got the beds together, and once you had the episode playing on your phone, they all shut up. You closed your eyes.

No matter who you loved, your crew would be there for you.

They were the only constants in your life, and you would forever be grateful for them.


	17. BMVagabond

Jon shut the door once again on Ryan, or James, or whoever the fuck he was. He made sure the door was locked before turning around and giving you a sympathetic look. You breathed deeply and looked back at your phone. You’d eventually need to face him, but for now, you were content ignoring his existence and focusing on your girls.

The email you had marked as Diamond’s was the most recent email you had received. A few hours previous. Just a simple statement ‘you’ll pay’’. Honestly? You weren’t at all threatened anymore. He played his hand too soon, and now both The Bombshells and the Fake AH Crew were on their toes. You and Geoff both enforced partnered trips. No one went anywhere alone.

You were pissed.

“You need to get out more,” Lindsay pointed out as you sent off a few emails to your contacts; you flicked your gaze up to her. Michael was sitting on the chair beside her, playing a game of poker. He was losing by about a thousand dollars. She turned her head towards her boyfriend, “ Is there a gym?”

“It’s on the ground floor, it’s open to the entire building,” Michael said, and then dug into his pocket, “You need a key card to get into it.”

“I’m fin-”

“For fuck's sake,” Lindsay pointed a finger at you, “If you say you’re fine one more time, I’ll kick your ass. Take the keycard and go and do something. Stop hiding in here.”

“I’m not hiding-”

The look she gave you stopped the words in your throat and you sighed. “Alright, I’ll go to the gym for an hour or so. You steal all his money, and Meg? You help her cheat.”

“Hey!” Michael’s voice rose in mock outrage, “There’s no cheating in poker!”

“Then you’ve been playing it wrong,” Lindsay tutted, and you laughed. You took the key card from Michael and gave Jon a smile as he held up fingers to tell Lindsay Michael’s card numbers.

The ride down to the gym was quiet and seemed to stretch on forever. You weren’t exactly dressed for working out, but you could survive. Even if you just left the room for about an hour, they would be pleased.

It took you a minute to locate the gym, and half a minute until the key card worked and let you into the gym proper.

You froze when you stepped inside, both of the people you were avoiding stood on opposite sides of the gym completely ignoring each other. Ryan lifting weights while Jeremy went at a punching bag. You swallow thickly and start inching backward, hoping that neither of them noticed your entrance. The tension in the room alone made you wanted to tuck tail and run.

Jeremy slammed his fist into the punching bag and it swung wildly away. He turned towards Ryan, “You know what I don’t get?”

“Oh, enlighten me, please. I just would love to hear your opinion on my private matters,” Ryan mumbled, placing down his weights.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell her?”

Ryan’s head snapped towards Jeremy, eyes narrowing, “I’m going to warn you once. Stay out of it. It doesn’t concern you.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Why?” Ryan asked, and you saw the switch flick in his brain. He straightened and moved around the equipment until he had a clear path to Jeremy. Jeremy rolled his shoulders and squared then. “Do you have any claim over her? She’s a free woman, a strong, independent woman. What right do you have to her private life? Your just one of her pawns.”

“I’m her friend-”

“No,” Ryan shook his head, “I saw you in the hallway that day, the way you looked when I kissed her. You think-”

“I don’t think anything,” Jeremy snapped, “She’s my boss, and whatever you think is going on between us, you’re wrong,” he took a step forward, “Are you jealous?”

“Are you? I think you’re pissed that she focused on something besides you.”

“Why don’t you fucking stay away from her? You’re obviously screwed up in the head-”

Ryan’s hand was around Jeremy’s throat, and you slammed the door open. Startling them both apart. You kept your eyes trained on Ryan, fury seeping out of every pore on your body. “Jeremy, go check on Lindsay and Meg.”

“I-”

“Now,” you snarl, stepping to the side. Jeremy shifts awkwardly before shuffling towards you. You grabbed his arm before he passed you and you whispered, “I’ll be chatting with you next,” and then let go. You saw a shiver roll through his body, and you shut the door behind him. The gym grew chillingly silent.

Ryan called your name, “I didn’t mean to-”

You twirl around, “Why don’t you just stay away from my crew? I don’t want a problem with our crews, but if you dare lay a hand on any one of my members again? I will make you regret it.”

His eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to make a retort but you held up a hand. “No. I don’t want excuses or promises you don’t intend to keep. I’m through with your goddamn lies, Ryan. Or is it James?”

“What lies?” Ryan asked, his voice rising slightly, “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

“What lies?” you parrot and then laugh bitterly, “You lied about being Georgia, you’ve lied about where you’ve worked, and you’ve lied about nearly every fucking thing in your life. Hell!  You even lied about who you were! I have no idea what your actual name is!”

“I only lied because I didn’t know who you were. If I knew who you were then I would’ve admitted that I was the Vagabond. Besides you’ve lied to me-”

“No. I have never,” you interrupt, “I never told you where I worked, where I was, or who I was. You never asked.”

“Are you expecting me to just ask you if you’re a criminal?” he scoffed and then stalked away, “I lied to protect you. Do you know how many people outside of what we’re dealing with that want me dead or hurt? Do you even understand how many people I’ve hurt? Do you understand how many people I’ve threatened? I have so many enemies that I can barely trust anyone I meet anymore. When I met you, I wanted to protect you. You told me that you only met jerks and assholes who thought of themselves first, and I wanted to make sure you didn’t have to deal with those bastards because you deserved better than that. So, I will admit that I was selfish. I wanted to be with you, but in doing so I was putting you in danger. However, you can’t put the blame solely on me. You dated me, thinking I was an innocent. You were putting me in as much danger as I was putting you. I was kidnapped. I was tortured and beaten. What they were saying I thought that they knew who I was and were going to hurt you. I was so...furious. I wanted to kill them all, and I wasn’t satisfied with what I did with that bastard. If I could’ve torn him open right then, I would’ve.”

You saw the rage and madness in his eyes as he clenched his fists in front of him, staring at the floor. “You shot him, and I saw the woman who shot me and I was furious. I wanted to hurt you, but then Jeremy called out your name and I was terrified of what I had felt.” He unfurled his fists, staring down at them as if the blood from that day still stained them.  “I needed to see if it was you or not. When I saw your eyes behind that mask I felt like I finally found someone who might accept me for...well me, but I saw fear in your eyes and I realized how much I fucked up. I will admit that I screwed up, and I will admit that I want to do whatever is in my power to right what I screwed up. I...I love you, so much. This life we lead hasn’t really brought any chance at romance for me…and well when I met you…”

Your eyes snap up to his, anger had been fading out of your body as he ranted on. “You love me?” you whisper, interrupting him. His eyes widen slightly when he realized what he said but and he nods.

“I do. Everything that makes you, you. I really should’ve told you that before...all this…I mean maybe that would’ve changed this or it might’ve made it worse.”

“Maybe I should’ve been a bit more honest about who I am...but I...I don’t handle being kept in the dark well and-”

“I will never lie to you about who I am again, I will be honest with you about how much of a fucked up individual I am...but we both know that if either of us had just outed ourselves to each other we didn’t know what the others reaction would’ve been. What if you were really just a citizen? What if I was? We can’t change the past but we can work on the future...”

You squeeze his hand, “This doesn’t fix everything.”

“I know, I still have a bullet wound.” You snort, and he chuckled as well. “Now, I have a selfish request. Can you get your crew to stop scowling at me?”

“I might make you squirm a bit longer,” you tease.

The door rattled as it opened and you both turn around to see Geoff poking his head inside. His eyes flicker between the two of you. “Are you about to have makeup sex?”

“What do you want?” you snap, embarrassed. You let go of Ryan’s hand and take a step away from him. You were still furious with both Jeremy and Geoff however. Ryan’s words rang true; you couldn’t throw all of your faith into someone you didn’t know was also a criminal. However, Jeremy and Geoff at one point knew that both of you were criminals and could’ve made it known a lot earlier.

“I need to talk to Ryan,” Geoff jerked his chin towards the Gent.

Ryan kissed your cheek before you could protest, “We’ll talk later,” he promised before slipping out of the gym and leaving you alone.


	18. Buisness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woops! Totally forgot to update yesterday, sorry! I was super tired and went to bed early.

“We need to take this crew out now,” you hand your phone to Meg, and she reads the email. “I’m tired of being threatened, and I’m tired of being one-upped. What are we able to get from them? Can you trace the email back to him?”

Meg handed you back your phone, both her and Lindsay were healed enough to move around. You weren’t going to push them too hard too fast, but to admit the truth you were going to be keeping them back from a lot of heists or anything of the sort for a while. It’s been a few days since receiving the email. At first, you had thought to just keep it a secret and ignore it. It slowly consumed your mind until all you thought of was the email. You weren’t sure if he was trying to goad you into doing something, or he was truly warning you, but you weren’t going in blind or without your crew to back you up.

“To tell you the truth. Gavin and I have been working together,” Meg pulled out her phone.

“Are we unable to function without the Fake AH Crew now?” Jeremy muttered, leaning back in his chair.

You had been meaning to speak with him, but it had kept slipping out of your hands. You turn towards him, arms crossing. “If that’s how you truly feel, you can go and help the B-Team with their side of things.”

“What?” his eyebrows shot up, “You’re kidding.”

“Let me rephrase that. I’m reassigning you. You’re B-Team until further notice,” you jerk your thumb towards the door; “Mariel will be able to get you settled in and assign tasks to you.”

“But I-”

“Enough”

“If this is about Vagabond and me-”

“I will say this once, Jeremy. You kept a secret from me that could’ve killed me. You didn’t know that Vagabond didn’t know who I was. This isn’t about my feelings. It’s about the fact that I trusted you with my back and you proved that you cannot tell me important details for whatever reason you thought. I need people I trust with my life beside me, and right now? You have proved otherwise. Now, leave before I decide that Mica gets a promotion,” you met Jeremy’s eyes and saw the disbelief and fury in them. He stood up sharply.

“We’ve been through so much together and this is how you fucking treat me?” he demanded, “You’re kicking me out! I didn’t tell you because I wanted you to be happy-”

“This isn’t about my feelings!” you shout, voice firm, you take a step towards him. “This is business, and I am your boss. What I say goes. Now, get out of here before I force you out.”

There was a tense moment where you thought that he truly was going to stay standing. You really didn’t want to have to force him out of the room. He finally backed down and looked at the others, waiting for them to back him up. When silence met him he looked back at you, a pleading look in his eyes once more. You jerk your chin towards the door.

“Fine.”

His response was short and curt, and he snatched up his jacket and stormed out of the room. Nearly slamming the door.

A small pebble of guilt settled in your stomach, and you caught yourself staring at the door for longer than probably necessary.

Meg cleared her throat quietly, “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” you turn your attention back to the slightly smaller crew. “So, you and Gavin found something?” She took a moment to reply, the look on her face told you she didn’t believe you. You raised an eyebrow, and she let out a soft breath.

“We’ve found a lot, actually. The man used to be the leader of another crew, years ago. Actually, Gavin figured out that Jack used to be a part of his crew. He spoke to Jack about it, and while she was cryptic about it, apparently shortly after she left it started to break apart from inside. Diamond was apparently abusive in both his power and towards the woman in his crew. One of my contacts figured out who ‘Clubs’ is, Gav told me about him. He’s the second-in-charge, but there have been some whispers of him being uncontent with his employment in the crew. Diamond hasn’t done anything about it because Clubs is one of the strongest men in Los Santos, and is respected by as many people who fear Diamond. If he gets rid of Clubs, he’s going to be targeted,” Meg explained, and opened her phone, she handed it to you an email opened on it. “He has no criminal record, however.”

“How does he not have a record?” Caiti asked, peering over your shoulder to look at the email. One of Meg’s police contacts had looked into it for her and found nothing about the man.

“No clue. He doesn’t have a record under ‘Clubs’ or under his registered name. I asked about both. Adam Ellis is a law-abiding citizen. He doesn’t have a ticket, he pays his taxes on time, and he donates to charities. He is basically the Caiti of The Kingpins,” Meg shrugged her shoulder, and Caiti smiled at the mention, “However, scroll down and you’ll see his left-hand man. Spades.”

“What’s with the card theme?” Jon asked, “Why don’t we have themed names? The only nickname that matches our crew name in any way is Dollface here.”

Meg grinned, “You should hear what the other members of his crew is called. I think he just doesn’t want to bother remembering people’s names.”

You open up the attachment on the email and Spade’s name popped up. He had nearly ten assault and battery charges, several charges of sexual assault, five arrests, and twelve murders - three of them contributed to his arrests. He was also wanted in twelve states, and on the Los Santos most wanted list. You were disgusted and wondered how the hell he was not in jail as a high-risk prisoner. Los Santos police department might be a bunch of idiots, but this was a whole different level. Even the Vagabond only had twenty murders actually linked to him, three times as many he was accused of having committed.

You hand Meg back her phone. Jack never talked too much about her previous crew, and you knew for a fact your mother had been a part of that crew. “What do we have on Diamond? A name, credit information, and address?”

Meg shook her head and sighed. “I’ve asked around. Seems that Diamond has always gone by Diamond. He disappeared from the scene shortly after his original crew disbanded.”

“From how Jack reacted to Diamond’s voice, it seems like it’s the same guy,” Jon pointed out, “You said she looked like she had seen a ghost.”

“Yeah, she went rigid and he knew stuff about her only someone who was close to her would know,” you said and then rubbed the heels of your palms heavily into your eyes. “Please tell me there is some silver lining to this? We know about one of their members and nothing more.”

“Gavin filtered out nearly a million dollars out of their crew’s bank accounts collectively, and I have blackmail implemented and twenty background members have already gone into hiding,” Meg smiled her sickly sweet smile. The one she only uses for when she’s manipulated people. A smug look came over her face, “Without a lot of his disposable members, he’ll have to be a lot more careful if he tries shit like kidnapping a crew member.”

“Can you get me the number of Clubs? I think-”

Geoff opened the door and leaned into the room. “I need to speak with you,” he nodded towards you. He then paused, “Am I interrupting something?”

You stretch your arms above your head, “Talking business,” you nod towards the others, “Keep up the good work.”

The conversation began melting towards upcoming movies and games coming out as you closed the door and followed Geoff to the elevator.  He was silent as he pushed the penthouse button and you assumed you were just going to talk in his office. Instead, he hit the stop button and turned towards you.

You exhale heavily through your nose, “Geoff if this is about pushing you into the coffee table-”

“No, I understand. When I talked to Ryan, he explained that you two were dealing with things but were okay for now. Are you sure you’re okay? That is a big reveal,” he crossed his arms, a look of concern flashing over his face. You raise an eyebrow.

“I’m an adult, Geoff, I can handle relationship issues just fine by myself,” you retort a bit sharply, “I’ve been fine by myself for years.”

The words looked like a blow to him, but he quickly recovered. “I have a plan on how to deal with Diamond and get him out of hiding.”

“Why are we in the elevator for that?” you ask, leaning back against the wall, “I thought you were going to shank me.”

The look he gave you made the corner of your mouth rise, “Because, I don’t think many members of either of our crew will agree with it. This is a risky move and could get somebody hurt or killed. However, Diamond is quickly becoming a thorn in our side. Last time he was this troublesome we thought we got rid of him for good, but short of killing him nothing seems to stop this guy.”

“I don’t like keeping secrets from my crew, and I hate lying, Geoff,” you straighten up, “There are few things I lie about, and those won’t end up harming those I care about.”

“If it’ll expose Diamond and keep your crew safe, will you do it?”

“Without hesitation.”

“Good, good,” Geoff nodded absentmindedly, and then sighed, “My plan puts either me or you at the greatest risk. Ryan will gut me if you’re at risk-”

“I make my own decisions, Geoff,” you said calmly, “This is a dangerous game we’re playing, and we can die at any moment.”

He nods again and then rubs his hands together. He seemed nervous, but so were you, so you didn’t point it out. After a moment he turns towards you, “I know your position on murder, but I need to know. If you get the opportunity to kill Diamond, even if you or I would die to do so, could you do it? Because if you can’t, I will, if it saves my crew from being killed or tortured. I will kill that son of a bitch in a heartbeat.”

You take a deep breath and nod, “He’s hurt too many people for me to have qualms about killing him.”

“Good, now here’s my plan."


	19. Promises Broken

You felt like such an asshole. You weren’t lying to your crew, but you were omitting information from them. You and Geoff had sent Ryan, Jack, and your crew, to scope out a potential meeting place. While you, Geoff, Michael, Gavin, and Ray, went to the opposite end of the city to conduct the actual meeting. If this truly was the end, and Diamond showed up and he was gunned down, then the risk would be worth it. If not? You didn’t want to think about it, honestly.

The plan was to show up and pretend that you were a turncoat so to speak. Geoff had thought out an elaborate back-story for what to tell Diamond. Instead, you came up with a better story that was simpler and wouldn’t betray you if you forgot a part. Geoff wanted to tell a story about how the man Diamond kidnapped hadn’t been Ryan and had been the Vagabond, and how you were so angry about it and blah blah blah. At the end, you had simplified it. Geoff had manipulated you into using him to help you get your boyfriend back, and now he was threatening Ryan’s life. You would give up the information on the Fake AH Crew before disappearing for good.

You didn’t know if it would work, honestly, you had your doubts and you informed Geoff of such. However, he said, in the end, it didn’t need to work fully. When Geoff had told you the plan originally, it worked with either you or Geoff. It took a bit, but eventually, you convinced him that Diamond would be more on guard if it was him. From the conversation on the phone, you had a distinct impression that Diamond was a huge misogynist. If you were there apparently alone then Diamond wouldn’t perceive you as a threat. Or that was the hope.

If Diamond even showed up.

Of course, when you got in contact with The Kingpins for the plan, you had carefully structured your words to call out Diamond for being a coward without using those exact words.

Even with Ray and Michael sniping above, and Geoff and Gavin hiding in the shadows ready to assist you on ground level if you needed it, you felt alone. Standing in the middle of the room you were exposed to enemy snipers, Diamond deciding that you weren’t really worth the time and effort and killing you before anyone could pull the trigger. It was nerve wrecking really.

You also had the disadvantage of not knowing what Diamond even looked like; you had to base it off the voice. Which, hearing it only once through a speakerphone really devalued your own knowledge of the man. Geoff had more of an idea, probably based off what Jack had told him, or if he had ever seen the actual man before.

“Nah, the police is super corrupted,” Ray’s voice crackled through your earpiece. “They accepted bribes from like everyone. I bet if we waved enough green under their noses we’d be allowed to do fucking anything.”

“I mean we’re basically allowed to anyways,” Michael retorted, “Until you blow something up and then it’s all like,” his voice switched to a mocking imitation, “’You kids with your bombs get off my lawn and stop blowing up my gnomes’.”

“Why gnomes?”

“I dunno…I feel like the chief of police has a bunch of gnomes in his front yard. His wife likes to garden.”

The real danger was only having four people to watch your back, normally you had five, and if you were going up against another gang you’d have your entire crew there. You checked your watch and were about to chicken out of the deal when two SUV’s pulled off the main road and headed under the bridge.

“Helen is such a nice lady, she bought me some brownies when I used to work at the station…they had weed in them and- Two SUVs coming in twelve o clock,” Ray’s voice switched to serious in an instant and the lines went silent.

It was almost cliché how they parked, their bright headlamps nearly blinding you, both pointing directly at you. You didn’t bother squinting, instead, you reached into your jacket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses and pushed them onto your face. If they wanted to try to make you flinch or risk limiting your eyesight, they’d have to try to do better than that. You crossed your arms, putting on a brave front.

The cars stayed on, and the back door on each of the SUV opened and three men emerged from the vehicles, two from one, and one from the other. They walked in between the two cars and stood in front of the cars, well out of physical reach, and far enough away that you couldn’t make out details of their faces due to the backlighting and distance. There was a brief moment of silence, and then the middleman took a step forwards.

“I feel like I’m at a disadvantage here,” he called out, “you know who I am, but I don’t know what to call you.”

“Does it matter?” you ask calmly, “I’m here to discuss the Fake AH Crew.”

Diamond slowly walked to the side, “What’s with the sudden change of heart? When I kidnapped, what’s his name? James? When I kidnapped him you were all buddy-buddy with the Fake AH Crew. I feel like this is a trick, and honestly, I came just to see whether or not you can actually dupe me.”

“I dislike it when crews I align with decide that I need to start paying a fee to keep out alliance strong. When that someone then threatens to hurt someone I care about? Well, you’ve seen what my crew does. We don’t make empty threats, we carry them out,” you bite out, taking credit for what Ryan did to Diamond’s man.

“So, you think that I’m going to be any better?” Diamond questioned, leaning against the front of one of the SUV’s, “How is your boyfriend doing anyways? Does he hate you for who you are? Or had you told him who you were before?”

“He doesn’t know,” you lie through your teeth and smile, “I sent him out of the city. Let’s just make this clear, I will leave you alone, as long as you don’t even glance towards any of my crew. If I hear a damn thing about you coming after my crew, I will decide it’s worth the risk of aligning with the FAHC to take you down. However, I’m not unreasonable. I will not support the Fakes, and give you information on them if we do not cross paths again.”

You were met by silence, and you kept your gaze straight at them. You didn’t know if they could see your eyes behind the sunglasses and you weren’t risking a glance over towards Geoff. You would not put them in danger before they decided to take out Diamond. There was a soft noise, and then Ray’s voice whispered over the com in your ear. “I can’t get the shot lined up, the SUV’s are too far back. I see his feet and nothing else.”

There was no way you could start backing up if you did they’d think you were running away or be on alert. Getting Diamond to move closer to you was near impossible. If Geoff or Gavin could get in a shot, but you wouldn’t trust Gavin with accurately getting a lethal shot into Diamond, and Geoff was not in the position where he could line up a shot without exposing himself.

Finally, Diamond pushed off from the car, “I want to tell you a story, and I think you’d benefit from it.”

You looked at him wryly, “I didn’t come to hear a story.”

“This will only take a second,” he clapped his hands together, “There was a woman who thought herself a leader. She rebelled against the crew that helped her, kept food on her plate and clothes on her back. She poisoned some of the others in her crew and together they fought tooth and nail against those who made them who they were. She thought that she could take on Los Santos as the new crew leader. Do you know where that got her?”

You waited, expecting it to be rhetorical, instead, he gestured towards you. “Go on, guess.”

“Out of the game, a nice home, and a family?” you retort, sarcastically. You knew what he wanted you to say, and you weren’t giving him that satisfaction.

“No, tossed into the bottom of a ditch pumped full of heroin and dressed like a common whore. This game is meant for men, not women,” Diamond’s voice turned hard, and he snapped his fingers, “You want to make a deal with me, you threaten me. You came here alone, just like a stupid woman would do.”

“You poor man,” you shake your head, “You can’t stand it when a woman is more powerful than you, can you? Well, it’ll be a surprise then when you’re killed by a woman in the end, won’t it?”

You reach behind you, but before you could touch your gun, Geoff jumped to his feet and fired his gun. One of the bodyguards crumpled to the ground, gun flying from his fingers. It was pure chaos after that. You dove to the side as the other bodyguard started firing with reckless abandon, trying to get Diamond into the SUV while keeping the three of you back. Gavin got a bullet into one of the SUV’s tires. You had to get to Diamond. You had a bullet with his name on it; the rest of his crew could wait.

Ray and Michael’s voices complained that they couldn’t get any sort of view on the situation and they were coming down to help.

You remembered Geoff’s words ‘If you get the opportunity to kill Diamond, even if you’d die to do so, could you do it?’

You dart forwards, in between the cars. Diamond was shoving one of his crew towards the rear of the vehicle, at the same time attempting to scramble into the backseat. You felt no hesitation in your muscles as you raise your pistol and take aim through the window. His eyes met yours and you felt the corner of your mouth twist down.

“Grab her!” Diamond yelled shrilly, pointing at you. It happened in an instant, your arm was slammed to the side just as you pulled the trigger and the bullet bounced off the armoured vehicle. Your head snapped up to see who had been able to grab you. It was Diamond’s second-hand man, Clubs. The man twisted your wrist and you dropped the gun from the pain, you swung your free hand up but Clubs’ other hand grabbed your throat and forced you against the vehicle. His grip not as tight as it should be, but you still fought hard and his arm didn’t budge. You met his eyes past the mask and saw the hesitation in them. He had said in the security tapes that he was tasked to kill you, so why was he looking at you with hesitation.

Diamond stepped out of the SUV, a smug look on his face. “Call off your dogs,” he ordered, but you clamped your mouth firmly shut. “Fine then,” he snapped his fingers at Clubs. There was a very brief hesitation, but there was still a hesitation. In the end, Clubs dragged you around to the front of the vehicles, gun pressed against your temples and arms tied behind your back with cable ties. Michael and Ray arrived at that moment and froze as Geoff threw his arm up.

“Let her go,” Geoff ordered.

“See,” Diamond pointed at Geoff, but he was looking at you, “I knew you were trying to trick me. I also know Geoff too well…he’s too soft to threaten a woman like that. It’s his downfall, just like he won’t do anything to me since we have you. If he kills me, Clubs will kill you, if he kills Clubs, I’ll kill you. He likes you too much for that. This gives me my ticket out of here. Don’t worry, Geoff, I won’t kill her if you let my crew leave without fighting back.”

You could see the conflict in Geoff’s eyes, but he lowered his gun, and Michael’s jaw dropped. “Geoff-” He turned towards Ray, but Ray also lowered his gun. He said something to Michael and Michael stepped back. Fury in his features.

“Fine,” Geoff stepped back, “But we will find her and get her back, and when we do, I will make sure that every injury you give her, you get back fifty times worse.”

“Geoff!” you bark, as Clubs started dragging you to the car, “You promised!”

“I know,” Geoff called back, “But…I can’t…I can’t…I’m sorry.”

“You liar!” you shout, “Shoot him! Fuck my life! Save our crews-”

Clubs murmured an apology in your ear before slamming his fist into your stomach. The air left you all at once and you doubled over. Dropping out of view of Geoff and the others. Clubs shoved you into the car and you lay on the bottom of the vehicle, gulping air before a bag was yanked down over your head.


	20. I Will Not Bow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Torture!
> 
> This chapter will contain torture scenes, use your discretion while reading.

The ground was softer than it had been, but by no means was it comfortable. Your mouth felt dry and thick like a cotton ball, and it nearly hurt as you swallowed. Your head ached, and it felt like it was covered in a fog. Most of your thoughts were scrambled, and you couldn’t figure out where you were or how you had gotten here. As you lay there, the fog cleared ever so slightly and your first coherent thought was that you had been drugged. Then you realized you hadn’t opened your eyes yet, though it took more effort than normal to even crack your eyes open. They felt stiff, heavy, and dry. You needed some water. God, you would kill for some water right now. The light was not bright, in fact, it was barely illuminated in the room, and you were able to slowly peel your eyes open. You wondered if opening your eyes had ever been this hard to do before.

What felt like minutes passed by, but you slowly came to the conclusion that an hour must’ve slid by. The light in the room grew brighter, and your eyes dragged towards the light source. A small window peeking into a window well. It grew brighter still, and your mind cleared with the light.

It cleared enough for you to think about moving. Your shoulders creaked with pain as you shifted, and blood rushed into your arms along with a thousand waking nerves. You clamped your eyes closed again, and wriggled your arms, praying for them to wake up faster. The movement rattled chains behind you and you freeze, ignoring the pain in your arms. You were handcuffed. The feeling of metal digging into your wrists became apparent as the feeling returned.

With a deep inhale, you slowly move into a sitting position. Your legs were stiff and sore as you stretched them. You found out you could move your arms in front of you, but couldn’t fully extend them in front of you. The chain prevented that. More searching revealed that the chain was attached to the floor behind the mattress. The chain was long enough that you could stand up, but couldn’t take more than three steps from the mattress. Not far enough to look out the window, not that it mattered. You were imprisoned.

Sitting back down, you swallowed thickly again. Water was on your mind.

You cursed Geoff quietly; he should’ve just killed Diamond then and there. You had doubts that Clubs would’ve immediately shot you, you didn’t think he had as much loyalty to Diamond as Diamond thought he did. You prayed he didn’t.

This was the first time you had ever been kidnapped, and as the last of the fog cleared from your head, anxiety started to set in. Yes, you could fake tough and nonchalant, but you knew that someone who knew what they were doing could break you in a couple ‘sessions’. That thought alone scared you and made you feel smaller than you had ever felt before. You felt a sense of desperation start to choke you, a small tremor rolled over your body and you begin yanking at the chains. The metal clanked together but didn’t budge even an inch from the ground.

You peer at the handcuffs, attempting to see if they had any sort of fault with them. A trigger mechanism you could simply bash against the wall and it’d pop open. Nothing. It even had keyhole covers to keep you from picking them. Not that you had anything that you could pick with. Besides, Caiti was the picklock expert.

The next thing you did was take stock of what you had. You were left with just the bare minimum of clothing, your pants, and shirt. Everything else was missing, anything that could really be used as a weapon. Sure, you could take off your pants and use it to choke out whoever kidnapped you but you weren’t that desperate yet. What would you even do once the kidnapper was unconscious? They might have the keys with them, or they might toss them out of reach. Then you’d be fucked royally.

The room you were in was an unfinished basement. It took up the floor space of an average house. The bare bones of rooms beginning to be built lay abandoned. The outer walls were isolated and covered with plastic ready for wires and drywall to cover them up. The ceiling had been set up with wires and lights, but you didn’t know if they were functional, they were currently off. If you had more space to move, you wondered if you could rip some of the wirings out and when they turned the switch, you could get the wire to touch bare skin and electrocute some assholes.

Of course, this was all dreaming. You were stuck.

The feeling of nausea and fear began creeping back in at that thought.

Hours passed, and you began to run out of things to keep your mind occupied when the door to the stairs opened. You straightened your shoulder and mustered as much confidence and strength as you could into your look. Sure, you would turn into a sobbing idiot if it was anyone you knew, but the faces you were met with were unfamiliar. They didn’t wear masks, and you wanted to tell them that they needed masks. Keep up that sort of anonymity and keep their kidnapped prisoners from knowing who they were after they escaped.

You kept your mouth shut.

They didn’t speak, simply reached behind you and fiddled with the chain, you head the thump of the chain hitting the mattress but the handcuffs didn’t come free. You didn’t bother asking the typical ‘who are you?’ or ‘where am I?’ questions. There was no point, they wouldn’t tell you. The men dragged you upstairs, and you didn’t bother fighting. Your reaction did cause a look to pass between the men. You were forced to sit in a chair in an empty room, and a camera was facing you.

One of the men started recording, and you swallowed thickly. “Make sure it gets my good side.”

Interrogation and plain torture were different. Interrogation always was for a purpose of finding out information. Torture was to break someone.

They didn’t break you the first time. They cut into your skin, broke your finger, burnt you with cigarettes, but you focused as hard as you could on your crew, the Fake AH crew…Ryan. Anything to keep you from thinking about the near excruciating pain. The men didn’t speak at all while they beat you, and you didn’t say anything either. The entire hours, minutes, or however long it took was silent besides the occasional cry from your lips as your concentration broke from the pain.

You were shoved down the stairs, and you couldn’t bend your wrist without a shoot of pure pain crackling through the bone and flesh. They roughly attached you back to the chain and left you alone. That night your mind was filled with nightmares and pain. Ever movement you made pulled on your wrist and the pain got worse, and each pulse of blood through the swollen wrist just aggravated your finger more. You barely got any sleep that night.

The only way you could keep track of time was through the window, and a couple days passed before one of the men noticed you looking at the window and covered it up before they left.

You lost track quickly.

The men dragged you back upstairs once more, putting you back into the chair once more. They broke from the script. The camera was not turned on and they didn’t approach you. You stared at the camera, wondering why they weren’t following the typical routine. Your silent question was soon answered when the door opened and three men entered. You didn’t look up right away, and one of them stood in front of you. You slowly raised your eyes and were filled with such hate it almost startled you.

Diamond had the smuggest look on his face and you wanted to break free from your chains and smack it straight off.

His fingers touched your cheek and turned your head to the side. “A few more days and they might not recognize you if they get you back.”

You don’t fight back. There was no point. Fighting would just waste your strength, and you knew that it would be futile to do anything. There were five of them in this room alone, you hadn’t had a decent meal for the longest time and you were just on the cusp of severe dehydration. You might be able to injure one of them before you were killed or shoved back in the damn chair and beaten until your friends truly couldn’t recognize you.

“Where’s that spark?” Diamond tutted, “Did my boys already break you?”

You didn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer.

His fingers dropped from your face. “Your boyfriend has disappeared, you know. I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere in this city, yet…he’s gone. Care to tell me where he’s gone.”

“That man is dead,” you lift your head to look him in the eye, “I killed him.”

The room was silent and then Diamond laughed, “I doubt it. You have a reputation for sparing ‘innocent’ citizens. Do you actually think I’m going to believe you murdered someone you cared about?”

No answer.

You saw his jaw tighten, he was getting irritated that you weren’t responding to his questions. For once he didn’t know.

The man Diamond knew wasn’t dead, he was just hiding. Ryan wouldn’t risk exposing himself as…well himself until Diamond was finished. He was Vagabond, and you prayed he kept the persona on whenever he left. For his sake.

“You know, your mother was a crazy bitch as well,” Diamond murmured, trying to keep an air of complete nonchalance. You raise your gaze to his eyes once more.

“Must run in the family then.”

“She wasn’t crazy until I was finished with her,” Diamond added, eyes watching you carefully for any sign that his words got to you.

“All my memories of her are soured,” you shrug a shoulder, “You’ll have to try harder to get under my skin.”

“Is that a challenge?” he leaned forward, placing his hands on the chair's armrest. “I can find anything on you.”

“Then I won’t be surprised when you tell me what I already know,” you whisper, “Why’d you come here?”

He shoved away from you, clearly pissed off to no end. Normally, pride would swell in your chest that you could frustrate such a powerful person like that. You felt nothing, and that scared you a bit. He snaps his finger and someone enters with a bucket of water and a towel and places it beside your chair. You force your mind to focus on Diamond, you knew what the water was for, and you’d rather not think about it.

Diamond removed his phone from his jacket. “We’ve been sending videos of you to your crew since you arrived, through the mail from random locations around the city, different people each time.  They know you’re alive. I want you to call them up and tell them to get the fuck out of the city. Or I will kill them all.”

“Why are you so afraid of them? None of them are violent, they can do little damage to you,” it was a lie, but he seemed to feel the same way.

“When allied with the Fake AH Crew they can do more than they could do alone,” he held the phone towards you. “Phone them.”

“No.”

You wanted to call them, talk to them. Hear their sweet voices. You couldn’t. You couldn’t give up their number like that. You didn’t want them to be able to trace the call. You couldn’t let them find your crew. You couldn’t.

They would never bow before the vulture before you. Not if you were alive, not if you were dead. They would survive without you, and that kept you strong enough to refuse the deal.

“Let’s see if she’ll change her mind after that,” Diamond jerked his head towards the bucket, “If she doesn’t toss her back into the basement and she gets no food or water for two days.”

Diamond let with two of the men. The remaining two men turned on the camera and walked towards you.

The towel was placed over your face.

You clamped your eyes shut and prayed that they could find you before you broke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woops! I was super busy yesterday and forgot to upload!


	21. Sutures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Torture

You couldn’t believe it.

The men were putting away their tools from the day’s torture, the cell phone sitting in front of you ready for you to break and phone your crew. Your hands weren’t behind you like they normally were; they had tried something new and torn one of your fingernails clean off the nail bed. You had nearly fainted and were sitting limply in the chair. When their backs were turned, you reached forwards, ignoring the pain in your body and snatched the phone from the table and tucked it into your pants.

Neither of them noticed the missing cell phone.

They marched you downstairs, hooked you back up to the chain and left without a word once again.

You fell asleep nearly the moment they left. Exhaustion overriding your desire to stay awake.

When you woke up, you were sure it was well into the night, and you slid the phone from its hiding spot. As you dialed the first number that came to mind, you froze. What if this was an elaborate setup. Surely they would’ve noticed by now that the phone was missing?

Was the phone rigged? You had seen movies where people were able to duplicate phones so whatever one phone received another showed up on another phone as well.

In the end, you hit the call button and threw caution to the wind.

It rang so many times that you felt panic start to rise in your throat, what if it went to voicemail? By the time the voicemail was heard you could be dead or worse. Tears blurred your vision and you choke back a sob.

“Hello?”

The sob exploded out instantly, unable to contain it. You could barely see anything, as you clutched the phone tightly as if loosening your grip would make the call slip away. The voice spoke again, but you couldn’t hear them clearly through your sobs.

“I thought heavy breathing calls were the weirdest thing.”

You laugh, you couldn’t help yourself.

“If you won’t say anything, I’m hanging up.”

The temporary relief was shot out of your body and ice quickly replaced it.

“Geoff,” you blurt out, “Please God, don’t go.” Your voice was thick and hoarse from underuse and the tears. There was complete silence as you bite your lip hard enough that the cracks bubbled with blood and you could taste iron.

“Oh god,” Geoff breathed out, “Fuck.”

“Please,” you beg, “Please…”

“Shhh,” Geoff’s voice was soothing, but it just made you cry uncontrollably, curling up on the thin mattress and cradle the phone against your cheek. It had been so long since you heard a friendly voice, a comforting voice. Geoff shouted for Gavin, his voice betraying his emotions. The shrillness and the angry snap of an order when Gavin didn’t respond fast enough. “Do you have any idea where you are?”

“N-…No,” you admit, swallowing down tears to respond. Your eyes darted to the window, “I-I am in…a…I’m in a basement…the only, god, they covered the window. I-I can’t see out of it.”

You heard the questioning voices of a few people in the background, and your ears pinpoint Ryan’s questioning voice instantly.

“Ryan,” you breathe, “Can-” you stop yourself, no. You wouldn’t do that to yourself or Ryan. “Can you…track the phone?”

“What kind of phone?”

Still clutching the phone tightly, you quickly take a peek at it. “Flip, Motorola.”

“Give me the phone,” you heard Ryan’s voice, quiet but demanding. It was clear that Geoff wasn’t going to give the phone up.

“Keep it on; keep it hidden in the room. Even if we can get a vague area where you are, we can narrow it down quickly. We will find you, and we will kill those responsible for this. How long can you stay on the phone for?” Geoff asked his voice calm and even the entire time he spoke to you.

“I-I don’t know,” you admit, “I got the phone and then I fell asleep. I could have hours…or seconds.”

“Have they hurt you?” Geoff asked softly, quietly, “You don’t need to answer.”

You could swear you didn’t have any more tears to shed, but they kept coming. Any sort of dehydration you had was surely getting worse. You wished that you never had to hang up the phone, and just listen to Geoff speak. Honestly, you didn’t even know why you phoned Geoff. You could’ve phoned anyone, but why him? Sure, his number was always changing and you never entered the numbers into your phone since the change was so constant…but why? You knew all of your crews, and Ryan’s number off by heart just in case you needed to suddenly change phones.

Ryan’s insistence for the phone was a bit more prevalent, and his voice was rising the longer he was denied it.

“I-”

Dread slammed into your body, and fear chilled your body like icy fingers on your neck. The familiar sound of a car pulling into the garage above filled your ears and you clamped your eyes shut. Willing the men away, for a few more minutes. A few more seconds even. Their feet thunked heavily above as they entered the house proper.

“I have to go,” you whisper, hanging up before they could respond and shoved the phone under the mattress as close to the center as you could. Later, when you had more strength and no fear of being caught with it you would move it to a better spot. For now, it would do.

You scrubbed hard with your shirt to get rid of your tears but knew they would be apparent. Your face must look like a cry-baby.

You already missed Geoff’s voice.

The door to the basement was tossed open and more than two sets of footsteps thudded down the steps. You swallowed thickly, your throat thick. The light filled the basement from the upper floor, and then all at once, the room was filled with sharp white light. The buzzing noise of the light filled the air as the men fanned out in the basement.

Diamond was back.

One of your torturers was there, but the other was absent. You wondered why as you met Diamond’s eyes.

“You have three days to comply with my demand, or I will kill you and deliver your body to your crew. I’m sure they’d get the message then,” he said, and a smug look filled his eyes. You noticed Clubs wasn’t with him. Why didn’t he have his muscle? Alone, you didn’t fear Diamond. After he had fled away when you and the others ambushed him, his intimidating presence was diminished. You clutched that small fact close to you. He could kill you, he could cut off your fingers, maim you. You took comfort in the fact that your crew would avenge you, and so would Geoff, so would Jack.

So would Ryan.

You must’ve not looked scared enough, for his face curled up into a snarl. “Maybe we should just send them a finger? Which one do you cherish the most?”

“Where’s Clubs?” your voice cracks but you put as much strength behind it as possible. Diamond’s eyes narrowed at you, and you smiled beside your better judgment. “He doesn’t approve of you senselessly beating women, does he? I bet there is a lot he doesn’t approve of. If I gut you, he’d probably just watch. That’s why you think killing or hurting me will make my crew run and hide. You don’t inspire enough respect and camaraderie with your crew and-”

“You know, I think I’ve had enough of this,” Diamond turned around and then paused. He peered over his shoulder, “If she doesn’t want to tell her crew to get out of Los Santos, then sew her mouth shut. I don’t want to hear a fucking word from her unless she’s on the phone to her crew.”

“What not going to take my fingers?” you bark after him as he and two of the men trudge up the stairs. Words surface in your mind, and you parrot Ryan, “If you threaten someone, you need to go through with it!”

The footsteps don’t even hesitate, and the door slams shut. Your mouth closes, and then men yank you onto your feet. If Diamond couldn’t even stay to watch your punishment, you wouldn’t let him have the power over you. Besides, he spouted off enough bullshit that another threat didn’t faze you in the slightest. You allowed them to take you upstairs and attach you back to the chair.

They spoke not a word, as they reached into the bag and pulled out a small packet that they unwrapped. A curved needle with a blue string attached to one end. Your heartbeat stopped, and all at once started hammering in your chest until you felt the urge to be sick. You fought against reacting to the sight, but your eyes wouldn’t leave the suture, and you could feel sweat forming on your brow and on your neck. One of the men grabbed your head and yanked it back so you were looking at the bright lights above.

You screamed for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to upload yesterday! Things are a bit hectic in my life rn with work and stuff! I'll be sure to upload normally next week.


	22. Lit Cigarettes

There were only two people on the Earth you wanted to feed them their own intestines. They had finished stitching your mouth closed, and had decided to leave your food and water just out of reach of you. Not that you could eat it, but just the sheer fact that there were food and water in the room and you couldn’t get it was just maddening. You were so hungry and thirsty by the time they showed up the next day, you were nearly fainting as they brought you upstairs. They gave you water through a straw, and the pain from drinking was enough to make you almost vomit in your mouth.

The worst thing about the men? They watched the entire thing with passive faces, you were just another woman they were torturing. They took no joy in it, but they showed no empathy to you either. Just blank slates.

It infuriated you.

They took a break, leaving you in the room alone, as they went out to take a smoke. You knew they were smoking, they went out the back door and from the room, you could smell the almost acidic smell of their cigarettes. The soft murmurs as they spoke about whatever was relevant in their life floated into the room. The window was closed but they had left the door open.

You almost had no wish to even attempt an escape. What was the point? You were weak, in pain, and half dead from injuries, starvation, and dehydration. If you could even get out of your shackles, you would need to somehow to get away from the house before the men called reinforcements, and you couldn’t kill the men outside in the backyard. The cops would be at the house in seconds, and they might think you an innocent woman who killed her captors to escape, but that wouldn’t stop them from doing a background check on you and discovering that you didn’t exist.

Dropping your head, your eyes caught the glint of metal. Most of their devices were tucked against the far wall, in the duffle bag, or laid out neatly with what they wanted to do that day. However, there was a knife sitting beside your chair.

You set your mind to the task. They didn’t hook your feet to anything, and you were able to tuck your foot back and nudge at the blade until it slid forwards enough that you could start attempting to grab the handle with your toes. That feat took a few moments as well, the handle was bigger than you could grab with your toes and more than once you dropped the knife and it almost skewered your foot to the floor. Once it did scrape your foot and you felt a warm trickle of blood flow from the top of your foot down between your big toe.

Finally, you got the knife into your hand and you leaned forwards. You scraped your skin more than once, but finally, you got the blade tucked into your bra, and sure the tip of the blade was digging into your stomach, and if you bent over too far it would stab into you but you had it hidden away.

The men arrived back a few minutes later, smelling thickly of cigarettes, and got back to their task. One of them tossed the lighter and the pack of cigarettes into the duffle bag. They finished the routine faster than normal, one checked their watch and a look passed between them and they took you back downstairs. Neither of them spoke once again, but one of them paused and then darted back up the stairs. You frown; they were really breaking from their normal routine. However, it did give you the perfect moment. Your hands were handcuffed in front of you, but you weren’t attached to the floor yet. The man bent down to grab the chain and you slammed heavily into him. Knocking him straight into the wall. It stunned him enough that he didn’t cry out.

You worked quickly, reaching down your shirt and grabbing the knife. You flipped it in your hands and dropped to your knees, using the momentum to slam the knife down into the man’s chest. He let out a scream, but you slammed your arm into his mouth. Ignoring the pain as he bit down hard, his teeth piercing your skin. It just made you angrier and the sudden adrenaline rush flushed your body of exhaustion and starvation. You pulled the knife out and slid it across his throat.

The other man wasn’t back yet, and you darted towards the stairs, but stopped and ducked to the side, hiding beside the steps. If you let one of them leave the house alive, then Diamond would find out a lot faster than if you kept them both silent and rotting in the basement.

His footsteps thundered down the stairs, and you counted to three. You heard the man curse and you crept out from your hiding spot. There was a phone in his hand; they most likely were supposed to give you the choice. Phone your crew and get your stitches out, or go without food again.

Still, as he unlocked the phone, you swing your hands over his head and yank back. The handcuffs dug into his throat and you hear a surprised noise but the blood rushing to your ears was too loud. The phone hit the ground. You were spinning around, his hands clawing at your wrists, reaching behind him smacking, scratching anything he could reach. He slammed you into a wall repeatedly, trying to get you to loosen your grip.

You didn’t.

His body weakens and goes slack against you, and you wait for a beat before letting him go. Then you remove the handcuffs from his neck and shove him over. His body hits the ground with a loud and solid noise. The room is quiet. The other body had blood pooling around him on the mattress, but it was slowing down. His face white, and starting to go blue from death.

You feel the adrenaline start to fade out of your body, and you step over the man beneath you and hurry over to the first murder and drop to your knees. You ignore the blood and search his pockets, not caring if you got blood on your hands or knees. You find the key and unlock your shackles. You tuck them into your pocket and find another set of keys in his back pocket. A car fob. You turn and scoop up the knife as an afterthought and climb up the stairs. Your body was getting weaker the higher you climbed, and you step into the garage.

The bodies.

Your fingerprints were everywhere. You DNA was everywhere in the house. They were down in a basement that was clearly designed to keep someone trapped.

It was a second thought to head into the room and dig through the duffel bag. It was easy to find the lighter, a roll of tape, and the box of cigarettes. You went downstairs and lit the corner of the mattress on fire. They would not find your DNA. Cleaning supplies further in were easily dumped up the stairs and throughout the house. Bleaching the evidence. This place would burn to the ground. Once upstairs in your torture chamber, you pulled out one of the cigarettes and lit one, a bit awkward with your stitches, and then flicked the ashes onto the carpet. The first few didn’t take, but you let the cigarette burn until it was flaking away from your finger, and then you dropped the butt onto the ground. Your head was spinning and you nearly blacked out, the flames dancing in your eyes. You needed to get out quickly. You taped the lighter button down and tossed it into the room. It would create a fairly tiny explosion but spread the gas. At least you hoped.

You headed into the garage and quickly started the car.

From there, your body reacted mechanically. Steering around cars and streets without it truly connecting with you that you were out, and safe for now. You were on edge, and you felt vulnerable. If anyone could see through the tinted windows, they would call 911 immediately. You didn’t look in the rear-view mirror in fear of seeing your reflection. You could see the mottled bruises on your arms, the cuts, and bumps that appeared on your skin. One of your nails was missing from when they got super creative.

You acknowledged your injuries robotically as if they weren’t even on your skin as if they didn’t affect you.

It would later terrify you that you thought that way.

For now, it saved you from breaking down in the car, and you pulled into a garage. It was dark out now, and you felt the last of the adrenaline seeping out of your body. Your vision narrowed and you couldn’t focus. Your head suddenly felt lighter than anything, and an incessant ringing dulled any other noise.

You blacked out.

When you woke, it was dark and you were sure you were dead. However, with a shift, a blinding pain flashed through your body and you let out a cry. No. You were alive. For how long you didn’t know. You slowly sat up, your body aching and screaming for you to stop for you to just lay back down and let go.

Would they even care?

Would they even be there?

You reached for the door handle to the car and it took too much effort to pop it open. Your arm wouldn’t push the door open. You leaned into it. The door swung open and you with it. Your elbow cracked against the floor and you let out a whimper. You didn’t have enough energy to cry out.

Someone called out to you, and then a hand touched your face. You didn’t recognize the person. He patted your face, his voice distant but soft. “Stay awake.”

With careful and gentle movements, he lifted you off the ground. Moving slowly towards the elevator. Your head was on his chest, and you heard him talking to you. You focused on trying to understand but you couldn’t. The elevator made you black out again, and when you came to, there was an explosion of senses.

People were yelling and shouting, there were bright lights. The sharp sting of a hospital room. Aching pain everywhere that was overwhelming.

Your eyes first laid on Geoff. His face was serious, and a hot fury in his eyes as he barked out orders. His eyes were on someone else, but then they looked to you. His mouth dropped open. Then without hesitation, he was striding over to you, you didn’t move.

When his hand came towards you, you flinched and he froze. He reached forwards, carefully and slowly, your eyes tracking the movement. His fingers touched your cheek, and even though it hurt, it was gentle. You felt tears pool from your eyes and then he leaned down, pulling you into a hug as best as he was able. You wrapped your arms around him, and clung tightly to him, as if you let go of him he’d disappear and you would awake back in the basement. He smelt of whiskey, cigarettes, faint gunpowder, and his expensive cologne. You didn’t want to let go, but he did and the hug was quickly replaced by another. This one just as fierce but the body was softer.

You clung back, realizing that this was real. You were safe.

The door behind you closed, and you relaxed into the arms.

You realized that the person holding you was sobbing and you felt tears prickle in your eyes, but the connection was gone too fast. Lindsay’s face was reddened with tears, and she wiped heavily at her eyes.

“God, you look awful,” she muttered, and then reached out. You turned your head, and her fingers curled outstretched towards you. The relieved looks around you hardened, and you tensed again. “We’ll kill the bastards.”

You open your mouth to tell them that they were dead, and a searing pain flared through your face. You hand raised up and you let out a cry of pain. The taste of blood filled your mouth, and you suddenly had the image of drowning in blood.

Panic filled your body and your fingers scraped at the stitches, but that just made them bleed more. A hand grabbed your wrist and you fought against it. The image of being forced into the chair, your head tilted back and the needle coming towards your face flashed in your eyes. You were heaved into a sitting position, a hand rubbing your back, while two held your wrists.

A familiar warm voice said your name and a hand cupped your cheek. “Lean your head forwards,” the voice advised. You listened to it, and the blood dripped onto the floor. “Get me a knife.”

“Get Kerry-”

“A knife!” the voice demanded, a bit sharper. “Shh, breathe through your nose, keep your mouth closed. Ray, tell Kerry and Dan they need to hurry the fuck up with those supplies. I’m getting these stitches off of her mouth.”

There were protests, but they died off. A knife appeared in front of your vision and you threw yourself back.

“You’re scaring her!” Jeremy’s voice snapped, “Are you a fucking idiot?”

You saw Ryan standing where you were with a knife. He held the knife away from you and held another hand open palm towards you. “I’m going to cut the stitches off so you can speak, okay?”

It took a moment for your heart to calm down, and you looked at his hand and then at the knife. It was Ryan, he wouldn’t harm you. You reach forward and took his hand in yours. Feeling the callous’ and rough texture, and relaxing slightly. You nod and close your eyes. The pain nearly made you faint as the blade slipped between your mouth and the stitches. Then all at once, you could open your mouth fully.

Ryan handed the knife to someone and then slowly reached up and touched your cheek. “Keep your head tilted down so the blood doesn’t go into your throat. Kerry and Dan should be here soon. We’ll clean up your injuries, okay?”

“Food. Water,” you blurt out, reaching towards your mouth. He gently pushed your hand down. You were sitting on a stretcher, and you assumed this was their impromptu surgery room. He leaned against the edge, holding your hand tightly in his, thumb repeatedly rubbing against your skin.

“Don’t touch your mouth, I’m assuming the blood on your fingers isn’t yours,” he murmured. Lindsay was standing on your other side, and you reached for her hand as well. She gladly took yours, enveloping it with both of her hands. Meg rubbed your shoulder from behind, and you saw the others standing at the foot of your bed.  “We’ll get you some food and water after your mouth has been cleaned and sterilized. They might need to put an IV in your body to replenish your water levels.”

Jeremy shoos Lindsay away and picks up your hand, he makes an angry noise.  “What did they do to you?”

“Why are you here?” you murmur, “What about-”

“When I heard what happened, I ignored your orders, I couldn’t just sit behind the scenes while you were in danger,” Jeremy replied, “I’ll go back to being support after you’re better…but I can’t…I just can’t, you know?”

You nod, squeezing his hand. Kerry and Dan entered shortly after, Dan gave you a smile. He was the man who had found you in the parking garage. They shooed the others out, allowing Ryan and Lindsay to stay when they kicked up a big enough fuss.

The pain that followed was not bad, but you still flinched if their hands grabbed too hard, or moved too fast. Your mouth stung after they removed the thread from your mouth, and cleansed your mouth and wounds. Your finger was splinted; your ankle was wrapped and secured.

They gave you as much food as you could handle, and let you drink water slowly after taking some pain medication. They did attach an IV to you, and you were starting to fall asleep. You didn’t - couldn’t spend time in this room on a stiff stretcher. So, after clearing you, Ryan helped you out of the room and took you to the lower level.

You didn’t really notice much after leaving the hospital, just walked slowly alongside Ryan. He opened a room and led you inside without turning the lights on.  It was sparse but you could tell it was Ryan’s apartment. Just from the simple plant with the name ‘Edgar the First’ written on the vase.

He helped you into the bed and tucked the blanket up around your chest. The room grew silent then, just the two of you staring at each other. Then all at once, his eyes watered and he dropped his head. You feel your bottom lip quiver, and your less damaged hand grabbed his lower arm. His body started to vibrate and he slowly leaned down until his face pressed against your stomach and his arm wrapped around your waist. You stroke his cheek and though you couldn’t see his face you could feel your stomach grow damp.

You start to sob and he shifts and envelops you in his arms. He kisses your temple, and then your jaw, your neck, your ear, anywhere he could kiss. You turn your head, ignoring the pain that made your lips swollen, and kissed him hard. He kissed you back but then pulled away. His cheeks were damp and his eyes were red.

“I thought I lost you,” he whispered, his fingers stroking your cheek. He propped himself up, “When Geoff told me…He told me you were gone…I thought you were dead…I thought…”

You didn’t know what to say and took a shaky breath.

“I will never leave your side again,” he promises, “I love you…so much…” he presses his forehead against yours, “and I will kill every fucker who dared to even witness what happened to you.”

“I…” you swallowed, “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t ever apologize for this,” he said fiercely, lying on his side and pulling you against him. His body wrapping around you. “Just…sleep. I won’t let anyone hurt you or wake you. I’ll keep you safe.”

No sooner were the words said were you asleep. Feeling the safest you had in two weeks.


	23. Life Worth Living

The next couple days were nice and calm. The others were gentle and quiet around you, making sure you knew they were around and making sure you knew they were going to touch you before they did it. It helped calm you down a lot, and yet you still jumped or felt your heart skip a beat whenever someone rested their hand on your arm or brushed past you. You still didn’t speak a lot, the wounds on your mouth prevented you from being able to open your mouth without pain flaring in them, and the occasional trickle of blood to flow out. You managed without speaking regardless.

They slowly grew louder and rambunctious over the next week, and you were even more relieved about that. If they spent too long pussy-footing around you in fear that you’d be constantly frightened by them would have gotten to you faster than they could’ve imagined. You wanted everything to return to normal.

Even if sometimes you’d be lying in the dark with Ryan, his arm resting on your side as his fingers slowly massaged your shoulder, down to your collarbone, and then back up. You would find yourself suddenly feeling empty and hollow. No emotions, not sadness, nor happiness. Nothing. Or you’d suddenly feel a clench of sudden fear from someone walking down the hall or shutting a door a bit too loudly.

As long as they acted normal, you could convince yourself that everything was normal.

Even if Ryan wasn’t convinced.

You turned your head and traced his face with your eyes. His jaw, his nose, his eyelashes resting against his cheeks. His breath came out evenly, but not the deep almost snoring noise of deep sleep. It was late at night, the red lights of his alarm clock would read well past three in the morning if you lifted your head to look. You didn’t, a tiny bit of fear rested in your mind that if you lifted your head to look, it could break the calmness you were feeling and you’d be thrown back into the real world.

For now, you would just lay beside the man you loved and forget about the world.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly, his voice breaking the silence of the room. You jumped slightly in surprise, sure you knew he was awake but still.

“Some warning next time,” you grumble, rolling onto your side towards him. He opened one eye, but his face stayed serious. With a grunt, he shifted towards you, propping his head up with his hand. His hair fell over his arm, and across his cheek. You reached up and gently smoothed it away from his face. You left your hand where it rested, and he tilted his head to kiss your palm.

“If you want to talk about it-”

“I don’t,” you interrupt him, “Not…not yet,” you amend before he could take any offense from your quick sharp words. He nodded his head slowly.

“If you need to…talk about it…or anything. I’m here for you. I can help you…I…” he trailed off, and you didn’t push for him to say anything more, just waited. In the almost timeless darkness, the length it took him to answer seemed like both forever and no time at all. After a moment he exhaled softly, “I know what you’re going through…and I know how much it can possess and cut you if you keep it locked away inside yourself.”

The red lights from the clock cast him in shadows, but you felt something shift and click. Ever since you discovered who he was, there was a barrier between you two. It seemed like there was so much he wasn’t telling you, so much he couldn’t tell you. You knew his past, but that was from a biased media perspective. You didn’t know what he went through to get to the point where he murdered, to where he got his dark and terrifying public face.  The one he donned a mask to portray. You wanted to ask him more, but instead, you leaned forwards and pressed your lips to his in a soft, affectionate kiss. As if that could heal the hurt between you.

There was so much you didn’t know about him, and there was so much he didn’t know about you.

You move closer and nudged him onto his back again. Another kiss, a soft caress. You held him as if he was a fragile piece of China and he the same for you. Right now, you wanted to be gentle and soft. His hands trailed, barely touching your skin, up your back and then back down to slide over your butt and down your legs. Both of your clothes were discarded with no rush. Then he was in you and you slowly rocked back and forth. There was no rush in the darkness, nowhere you needed to be. You didn’t need to prove anything, and neither did he. You were one, and you took his hand, linking your fingers in with his and kissed his knuckles as you moved over him.

He sat up, arms wrapping around you and thrusting languidly up into you. His mouth pressing soft kisses against your shoulder and collarbones. You entangled your free hand in his hair and held him close to you.

This is what you could’ve lost.

You curled up next to him when you were both done, your fingers still intertwined. His breath slowly went even, deep, and a soft snore started. Fully asleep.

You removed your grip on his fingers and slid from the bed. You pull on your clothes, and tugged on his leather jacket about your shoulders and snuck from the room. The room was hotter than you thought it was, and the hallway was nearly icy when you stepped into it, and you belatedly realized you didn’t bring shoes. Still, you walked slowly over to the elevator and took it up to the penthouse. Expecting it to be empty at this time, you wanted to sit by the window and stare out at the window.

There was only a handful of times when you had woken up and Ryan had actually been asleep beside you at night. Most of the times he was faking sleeping or on his phone playing some mind-numbing game with the brightness turned all the way down.

Now you wondered if images of his torture, or his murders, flashed behind his closed eyelids and haunted his sleep as well.

You didn’t blame him for not wanting or being able to sleep.

The penthouse lights were on, and you heard bickering from the planning room. Geoff and Jack’s raised voices going back and forth. You almost didn’t want to go in, and just grab a glass of water and curl up by the window, ignoring them. However, you knew that wasn’t like you, and you crept closer to the door.

“No! She’s just been through hell, she’s not going to be included in this,” Jack’s voice snapped back, “I don’t care if she’s the leader of The Bombshells, we can take Diamond out without The Bombshells. I’m not letting you put her back in danger, and I’m still fucking pissed that you did that. You fucking sent us across town? If you pull that bullshit again, Geoffry, I’ll make sure you know you did the wrong thing.”

Geoff’s response was immediate, “We know Diamond is a coward, he ran when we started firing. If she didn’t run after him then she wouldn’t have been-”

“Don’t you dare blame her!” Jack shouted, her voice nearly loud enough to cut through the soundproofing completely. You grab the handle, but Jeremy’s voice interrupts the fight.

“Look! We can play the blame game all day, but we’ve got to focus on the actual problem. Yes, she’s injured and healing, but she’s still strong and we can rely on her to lead us and fight if we need to. You know the moment she figures out that you are going after Diamond without her, she’ll be all over you and if you don’t agree to let her join she’ll figure out a way to get involved regardless. Tell her what you’re planning and she’ll let you know her limits,” Jeremy’s voice was quieter, but you could still pick up his words through the door. A few other people spoke quietly.

A bit of…not quite anger, but not just irritation, flared in your stomach. You opened the door, not caring if you looked like you just woke up, wearing your boyfriend's jacket, without shoes on, and not a damn thing making you look in control of yourself. The bickering ceased immediately, and you saw your entire crew with the nearly entire crew of the Fake AH Crew sitting around the table. Empty cans of beer, pop, and water bottles littered the table. A large, half empty, bowl of chips sat in the center, with two empty bags of plain chips discarded beside it.

“Who plans shit at…what?” you walked over and picked up Jon’s wrist and looked at his watch. Your voice was still cracking and thick from underuse, and Jon flinched as you spoke. Your lips hurt like all hell but you still spoke. Your crew wouldn’t meet your eyes, “Four A.M?”

Jack snapped your name, and you felt your body tense and harden. Retreating into its defensive position. Your eyes met hers and she seemed to regret her tone, but she straightened her shoulders. “Go back to bed.”

“I’m not twelve,” you retort sharply back, “You will not tell me what to do. I am responsible for the lives of my crew, and I won’t have them be sent into danger without knowing first. If you think I am unfit to lead my own damn crew, tell me and we can get that out of the way now before it becomes a thorn in my side. Got it?”

You nearly regret the words once they were out of your mouth. Mostly you regretted it when you saw her face crumple slightly, but you also regretted speaking so much due to the torn flesh of your mouth. You dip your head towards her in an afterthought, “I appreciate your concern…I really do…but I created this crew. I chose each of its members personally, and have made sure they are safe above everything else for years now. I won’t just abandon them.”

“We won’t abandon you,” Jeremy added, meeting your eyes. “We won’t let you face danger either without us by your side again. I think we can all agree that The Bombshells will be going against The Kingpins no matter what you guys decide to do.”

Geoff agrees and Jack throws her hands into the air. There was a tense moment before she sighed and sat heavily down in her chair. Muttering about how it can’t hurt to let you know about the plan, in case you and Geoff decided to make a side plan again. You ignored her comment and placed a hand on the back of Meg’s chair, she smiled up at you and you gave her a soft look back.

The plan was vague so far, they had gotten tied up in the fundamentals when Jack started to fight with Geoff. They knew a few different locations where Diamond was said to have set up his new base, but nothing concrete. The basic plan was to find the location and sneak into it to assassinate Diamond. Obviously, his men had no true loyalty to him, how could they with the way he treats people? You remembered Clubs apologizing to you and snapping at the man in your apartment. You kept that information to yourself, you weren’t sure why but you didn’t want them to know just yet.

“We’ll find more information,” you agree, looking towards your crew. Meg and Lindsay nodded their head, Caiti shared a look with Jeremy and then they both nodded as well. Jon finally met your gaze and gave a slight head tilt. You patted his shoulder. “You plan for the attack.”

You would divide the plan out into both crews areas of expertise. The Fake Ah Crew might be bumbling idiots most of the time, but they have successfully pulled off heists with minimal police involvement after all.

“Now go to sleep,” you command, and placed your hand on Meg’s opposite shoulder and bumped your hip into her shoulder lightly.

It was like a teacher dismissing her class, everyone got up nearly all at once, chatting, yawning, and moving for the door in groups of two or threes. Your crew mixed well with the Fake AH Crew, and a disturbing thought crossed your mind.

At least they ’d be taken care of if I die.

Before you could contemplate on it further, Geoff tossed his arm around your shoulder, Jack had left the room talking with Caiti already. Soon it was just you and Geoff standing in the room.

“I haven’t gotten the chance to talk to you since…well,” he started, and then stopped for a period of time, “I’m sorry I didn’t keep my promise.”

You forgot about that, really you had, and for him to say the words was odd. You turn your head towards him, he stared at the open door. His arm squeezed you closer and then let you go. “Next time I’ll shoot the bastards head clean off before I let him take anyone away.”

You wanted to say that you would rather have been killed because of Geoff’s actions but knew the words would come across bitter and accusatory. Instead, you patted his back and murmured something comforting. “Next time, he’s not going to speak before I slice his throat open.”

You leave the room before he could say anything and take the stairs down another level to avoid the elevator. You head back to Ryan’s apartment, just to run into his chest. He let out a heavy breath and wrapped his arms around you.

“Where did you go?” he demanded as you nudged the door shut with your toe and hug him back. “Don’t do that again.”

You press your cheek against his chest and listen to his heartbeat. The rapid beats were slowing down as he kissed your forehead. “I went upstairs to get some water, and spoke to Geoff,” you murmured, “Let’s go back to bed, I’m exhausted.”

“I thought you said we weren’t going to lie to each other,” he asked, not releasing you completely from his hold. “Neither of us tired.”

“We’re both tired,” you murmur, shrugging the jacket off your shoulders and slumping onto the bed. He nods in agreement, and you prop yourself up on your elbows, “Come, let’s pretend to sleep together.”

He laughs, a hollow sound, but he removes the shirt he had hastily put on in his rush and climbs onto the bed and drops down half on top of you. You laugh and thread your fingers through his hair.

Neither of you get much more sleep that night.


	24. Beginnings

Geoff had taken Ryan aside to speak to him a few moments ago, giving you time to go down to the garage and make a phone call. Ryan was the last one to know about the plan, and you wanted to give them space to talk about it all. From what you had gathered from Lindsay, Ryan was meticulous about how things happened. He was always making contingency plans for contingency plans and ironing out any wrinkles. Of course, there wasn’t much of a plan currently, but by the time it was ready to be carried out, there wouldn’t be time to sit around and fine tune it.

The phone rang three times before being answered. Griffon’s friendly, warm voice filled the other end.

“Hello!”

“Hey Griffon, I was wondering if I could hire you to scope out someone for me?” you leaned against one of the cars, hoping that the alarm wouldn’t go blaring. It thankfully didn’t, and you absentmindedly examined the other cars. Ryan’s Zentorno was sitting two cars down from you looking washed and newly painted.

“Yeah, I have a few pieces for sale,” she said, and your eyebrows furrowed, “Oh, you want a commissioned piece? I can do that, here let me just step out and we can discuss this further.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” you ask, the frown pulling uncomfortably on your mouth. You run your fingers over the healing wounds.

The muffled sound of a door shutting, and high heels on a floor sounded through the cellphone. “Commissions generally start at about six hundred dollars and depending on how large can get up to three thousand. If there is a limited time I need to do it in, the price will go up. We can work out how much when I see the design.”

Another door shut and then Griffon’s voice returned immediately before you could demand what she was doing again. “Sorry, I can’t talk for long. I’m at a job right now,” she said quickly, “Who do you need me to scope out?”

You knew better than to question about her job, she wouldn’t give anything up anyways. She might work for you, and Geoff, occasionally, but you knew better than to think that her loyalty laid with you or Geoff. The woman was a businesswoman through and through, and she knew better than to show favouritism towards one person or crew. That could get you killed if you were a mercenary. Griffon dealt with anything from being a hired gun, to an assassin, to an informant.

“I need you to get an inside view of Diamond’s base, or find a blueprint, or anything like that,” you requested, scratching at the surface of the car you were leaning on with the tip of your fingernail. It was smooth and clean. Not a single scrap or chip on its surface. You felt sort of jealous of your idle amusement.

There was a pause that was too long for your liking before she answered, “Of course, should be easy the man is very…obvious.”

“Griffon? Where are you?”

“I’m at a job,” she responded too quickly.

“So…how much will you charge me for this? Should I expect a bill before or after?” you ask, she told you how you were paying and how much the moment she agreed to the terms. The fact that she accepted your request immediately was suspicious enough. Griffon was a free spirit very much, but she was also very careful about who she could piss off and get away with it. If someone very powerful was cautious of her, she wouldn’t dare poke them and risk their complete wrath. Her entire career was based on mercenary work.

“Oh…after I should expect,” she answered absentmindedly.

“Is Geoff already paying you?” you demand, “Griffon, are you already investigating Diamond?”

There was a soft sigh, “There are…complications that I cannot discuss over the phone. However…” she let out a breathy laugh, “I may not publically align myself with anyone, but there are people I would fight tooth and nail to keep them safe and alive. This man…he has threatened more people that I ally with than I care to admit.”

“Are you at his base right now?” you demand, standing up suddenly. You felt a bit of silly betrayal build in your stomach but you squashed it. You wanted to demand how long she had been there for if she knew where you had been when you were kidnapped or not. “Do you have any information you can share?”

Another pause, this one much longer before your phone vibrated in your hands. “I sent you an email. It will contain the useful information, and if you want you can pop me a text on my secondary business phone to discuss going further with that information. Now…I really have to go.”

You said goodbye, more eager to see the email than to continue talking to her. Griffon was awesome to have around to talk to over a beer or sit around and watch her carve, but you would wait until the world was calmer and much safer. Until then…you lowered your phone from your ear and opened your email. Griffon had many emails, and probably many more emails than you were aware of, but you saw the one she mainly emailed you with.

Resting fully back on the hood of the car once more, you scanned the email. There was one attachment in the email, labeled as commission list. The rest of the email was literally just Griffon talking about commissioning a wooden carving. If someone were to go through her emails and see that, they probably would click to the next email. This type of email was probably a needle in a haystack. The chances of someone trying to find discriminating evidence against her finding it in the email sent to you would be slim to none.

The attachment looked awfully familiar to what Meg had shown you the other day. Clubs information laid out in full in front of your eyes. His house, his number, his associates, his license plate. Everything. Hell, Griffon even had his favourite colour in the document making you snort. At the end of his information was author’s note written by Griffon.

Both of these men have admitted that Diamond is an idiot and won ’t last the next couple years in Los Santos. Contact them carefully but quickly and you might be able to sway them to support you in case anything happens.

You look at the next person information. Another Adam.

You smile slightly, how many people were named Adam under Diamond’s employment? This man was called ‘Ace’. Another card reference. He was the leader of an almost secondary crew within The Kingpins. The information beneath his name and other basic information showed you that he was the one who had been ordered to tear up your warehouse and blame it on the Fake AH Crew. Adam had been speaking about breaking away from The Kingpins for the last couple months quietly.

Both of them were more on the lighter side than the darker. Neither of them had much of a criminal record, unlike Spades and Hearts, whom you hadn’t met yet but was apparently a very important man within The Kingpins.

You glance up as the elevator dinged, the garage was locked to the average building occupant, at least this one was. You had to have a key to access it. You had borrowed Michael’s key to get down here. You stood up before the elevator dinged and it was the owner of the car you were perched on. Ryan stepped out from the doors, glancing around the elevator before his eyes landed on you. You smiled, tucking your phone away.

“No side plan this time?” you could hear the bitterness in his voice, and the smile faded on your face. The moment it did he sighed and scratched at his arm, “That’s not fair of me. I…just. Why do you trust Geoff more than me?”

You hesitate, unsure of if you should brush it off or not, but his face told you that he wasn’t going to drop it anytime soon. “Is there somewhere better we can talk?” you ask, and then gestured to the cars, “Not much-sitting space.”

He pushed the elevator button, “The roof, you need to have special access.”

The two of you took the short trip up onto the roof without much conversation.

The roof was plain, obviously a space for air cooling towers, antennas, and the like. However, there was a lower ledge that was empty, there was a bunch of chairs, coolers, umbrellas, and other items. You walked over and plopped down on one of the chairs. They weren’t even folding chairs, a few of them were recliners, and others were fancy restaurant booths. How the hell they even got them up here was a feat beyond your imagination.  The recliner lets out the faded scent of pot, cigarettes, and the alarming addition of gasoline.

Ryan sits in one of the recliners close to the one you were in, and you could tell the way he relaxed back into it, that was his chair. The chairs at first seemed random, but you could see that there were seven main ones that seemed well worn. There was a large leather recliner that had a cooler right beside it, the other side had a recycling bin. The restaurant booth had burns marks and a covered box of grenades and other explosives. You could almost see the personality of the chairs.

“What is this?” you gesture, feeling an odd sense of peace enveloping you as you relaxed into the chair.

“Pre-heist celebration,” he explained, “The sun looks great from this angle,” he pointed lazily where the chairs were pointing. “The day before the heist is carried out, we’ll gather up here and just hang out. The others will drink, those grenades are smoke and paint. The lads will throw them and see how far they can throw before they blow up. The furthest was Michael who reached two buildings down…that was before we went to prevent you guys from breaking into our banks,” he gave you a sidelong glance at that. He fell silent and then looked over at you,” So…are you going to answer my question?”

You take a deep breath and sigh, “Yes, I guess.”

“You don’t need to if it’s too personal!” he held up his hands, “Not trying to push any buttons.”

You picked at a loose string of the chair, “Well, I haven’t told anyone the story in detail. Lindsay is the closest to knowing, but I haven’t even told her the full thing.” He was silent as you stared at the skyline. The sun was just starting to cast the sky in a mottle of orange, pink, and purples. Clouds threatening to release rain were in the distance and you wondered if the penthouse would get a torrent of rain or would the clouds dry up before then?

“When I was a small child…I was abandoned,” you explain, keeping your eyes off Ryan. You hadn’t told Lindsay because you knew she’d pity you even if she would outright say she wasn’t. “My only memories of my mother was of a drugged up criminal. I was eight when she left me, and I met Lindsay a few weeks later. We became best friends, and the only reason I stayed alive was that I was over at her house nearly every day. Getting food, a place to do a quick wash. I think Lindsay’s parents knew I was in a bad situation, and never complained if I stayed the night. They even bought me clothes, sent me off with food, and made sure I knew their numbers off by heart within a couple months of meeting them.

“Lindsay’s family is very rich, by the way, but her father owns an auto shop. I was playing there with Lindsay when this man dropped off a car to be fixed. At that age, I would’ve loved to play with Lindsay and be her sister, but I knew I had to leave. I couldn’t impose….and I left to find a nice back alley where I wouldn’t be noticed by cops or criminals alike. A few hours later, the man from the auto shop appeared and I was so terrified,” you laughed, remembering it, “I thought he was going to kill me, or worse, but instead he presented me a flower and then left a change of clothes, food, water, a backpack, and a sleeping bag for me before leaving. He did this every month when he brought his car in, and then more and more after that. He was the nicest man I had ever met.

“Eventually, I trusted him enough and we would walk to a park or to a restaurant and we would eat and chat. Never about my parents, but about whatever was on our minds. One day he asked if I would like to have a family of my own, and I agreed. Nothing could be worse than sleeping on the streets…after all. He took me to an apartment and let me have my own room, it was sparse and with just a simple bed and empty dresser. A couple weeks later we got it all perfect to my tastes. For five years I lived with him, and then I started calling him ‘Dad’. He asked me to call him ‘Mom’ instead, and a few years after that he had gotten surgery to reflect who she was. My mother. Lindsay met her, and so did Lindsay’s parents. It was great!”

You looked at Ryan, and his eyes were glued to the side of your face, his hand suspended in the air between the two chairs. You tilted your arm and reached out your arm until your fingers were locked with his. You could see the question in his eyes, ‘How does this relate to Geoff’

 “There was this man…I can’t remember exactly when I first started to see him or if we were ever actually introduced. However, he brought me small gifts whenever he visited and smelt of booze and cigars. He was covered in tattoos and I spent hours asking him why he got each one and how much it hurt. I would trace the designs and once I got a packet of temporary tattoos and covered my own arms. They both laughed until they were nearly on the floor when I showed them, and he said that he would pay for my first ever tattoo the moment I decided to get it,” you smiled fondly at the memory. Seeing your adoptive mother and him doubled over with laughter and tears squeezing out of their eyes.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but she was part of the same gang as my mother, and shortly after I was adopted by her she left the gang to join with Geoff. When I was sixteen, my real mother showed up at our apartment and started screaming at her. Telling her she was a thief and yelling slur after slur at her. My birth mother attempted to take me, grabbed my arm and started dragging me towards the door but then the woman I knew as my mother pulled out a gun and told my birth mom ‘If you touch my daughter again, I will kill you myself. If you threaten her safety or her happiness, I will gut you. If you dare to threaten the Fake AH Crew and theirs again, we will find you.’”

Ryan’s hand tensed and you looked over at him. His mouth was popped open and you smiled at him, “Jacklyn Pattillo adopted me when I was eight, and Geoffrey Ramsey has been my mentor since I was just as young. That’s why I trust them, and that’s why I will not have our crews fighting for blood. No matter what happens.”

“That’s why Geoff said to take you guys instead of killing you when you were breaking into our banks,” Ryan muttered, “Fuck. If I had killed you…”

You squeezed his hand, “If I had killed you, I’m pretty sure he’d see it as if his daughter was killing his son.”

“Geoff and I aren’t that different in age…” he muttered, and you quirked an eyebrow. “What happened? Did your mother run off and you haven’t seen her since?”

“I saw a picture of her dead in a ditch,” you confess, feeling the barest amount of sympathy. “The report was that she had overdosed and crashed a car and was thrown through the windshield. How’d you get involved in the Fake AH Crew?”

“I…” his face reddened slightly, “I was at a bank because I just moved to Los Santos to start a job as an IT guy for the city and was setting up my bank account. These assholes burst in and a while later during the firefight with the police, one of them handed me the duffle bag because his gun was jammed. The police thought I was one of them and so I grabbed the gun from the asshole, unjammed it, and fired back. They got me the hell out of there and then hired me in their gang.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, “It was by accident?”

“Gavin couldn’t figure out how to unjam his friggin gun!” Ryan’s voice rose in defense, “If it wasn’t for the English prick I wouldn’t have ever become the Vagabond.”

You reach over and pat his hand.

“Wait, if Jack adopted you, how come you aren’t part of the Fake AH Crew?”

“When I was twenty,” you sighed, “They…well, someone was getting to close to figure out who they were outside of the crew and had to split. Jack gave me enough money to live comfortably without a job for five years, and then erased all evidence we ever knew each other, burnt our apartment and fled. I told Lindsay, we started living together in an apartment. A few years later we met Meg, and then we started The Bombshells. Speaking of…I won’t stray from whatever plan we end up executing…but if your life is in mortal danger? I will.”

He squeezed back, “I would kill anyone to save you.”

“I would too,” you promise, lifting your gaze as the sun touched the edge of the horizon and sent off an orange glow over the city.


	25. Long Time No See

After your session on the roof, it was as if you couldn’t find a spare moment to spend time with anyone. You could barely spare a second to check up on your girls on a personal level, not to mention half the time you or Ryan got to bed you’d collapse and be asleep before the other got there. With what little sleep either of you got…well you didn’t want to wake Ryan when he was sleeping to talk to him. There was too much on your mind anyway.

Griffon had gotten you the information about where Diamond would be, and you related that to Geoff. The rest of the plan grew on top of that little piece of information that everyone hoped would remain unchanged.

The previous night you had spent hours with Gavin and Meg, making sure that the cameras were all in place so that those who would be staying behind, Jon and a man named Trevor, would be able to relate information about police, back up for the enemy, and hidden people. If it went to the shitter, they could help evacuate the two crews which you were grateful for.

Your fingers throbbed painfully, they weren’t fully healed but you couldn’t wait any longer. You stretched them, and a dull but painful pulse emitted from where they had been broken. You felt a tug at your waist and glanced over at Meg, she was adjusting the harness on your body. For a woman who was terrified of heights, she was doing amazing on the roof of the Kingpins warehouse looking down the skylight. She was making sure that your gear was set up properly in case you did need to repel down to help out, or if you got hit and fell down into the warehouse you wouldn’t smack into the ground and die from the impact.

You give her a smile you hoped was reassuring before turning on your comms.

“Check in,” you ordered, waiting for the replies of your crew.

The crackled responses came in from Jon, Jeremy, Lindsay, Caiti, and then from the secondary team, Mica, Barbara, Mariel, and Tyler. You couldn’t see them all but knew exactly where they should be. Jon related the information quietly to you, and then you heard him speak to Mariel and Tyler telling them to shift over about a foot to be fully hidden from the bottom floor.

Your heart was beating heavily in your chest and you felt a thin film of sweat forming around your hairline. You were nervous, the Fake AH Crew would be invading a rival crew’s warehouse while the crew was there. The Kingpins would know the layout of the warehouse a lot better than any of you could ever prep for.

What was worse? Geoff made you swear that your crew would not get involved until he gave you his word. You thought it was utter bullshit but you supposed it was for the best, if Diamond did get away, and you swore you wouldn’t let him, but if he did? He would be focusing more on the Fake AH Crew than your crew, and you’d be able to take advantage of that.

Two cargo vans pulled into the warehouse followed by two SUVs. You hunker flatter against the roof, flicking your safety off.

Four men climbed out of the cargo vans and proceeded to open the back doors. Men climbed out of the SUVs and you saw Diamond. He was wearing a plain white mask. With a small defect on the left cheek. You thought you’d have a panic attack from seeing him but you just felt empty. He was no threat to you, he was a coward after all. You’d sew his mouth shut before you ever cower in front of him. There was something off about him, however, but you couldn’t put your finger on what exactly.

Clubs started to order the men to take the contraband to specific areas around the warehouse.

Geoff didn’t let them leave the van area before he and his crew sauntered out.

Now they were intimidating. Their weapons ready and primed, bulletproof vests, an air of confidence and fury. They walked in formation and moved as one. Even the behind the scenes team. They stopped as one when the other crew noticed them and there was a moment of pure panic from the Kingpins as they scrambled to grab their own weapons.

The last man to grab a gun was familiar, too familiar.

You didn’t say a word.

Geoff’s voice came through the comms loud and clear. “Well, well, well. ‘Diamond’ isn’t it odd to see you here?” You couldn’t hear Diamond’s response but Geoff barked out a laugh. “I don’t think so…you see, I am willing to die for my crew. I would lit this place up and send this place to the fiery pits of hell where we both belong.”

Another response and Jack speaks up, “You don’t think you threatened our crew? I remember you being an idiot, but not this big of one.”

Diamonds reaction was anger but clearly amusement. There was an immediate reaction from Geoff, “I thought I told you not to speak that way about Jack? I think you need to learn a lesson about messing with the Fake AH Crew. Nobody messes with my crew.”

The threat was taken seriously immediately, and the sound of bullets raining through the air stopped your heart for a second. The two crews dove in opposite directions, and you could tell the Fake AH Crew had more experience in firefights. They broke into groups of two, but the two left in the middle of the room were Michael and Gavin.

Michael swung a mini gun off his back and let out a whooping noise before the loud whir of the gun started and there was a shout as the bullets started to tear through the room. Gavin pulled off the backpack on his back and pulled out two grenades and whipped them into the distant warehouse. The cargo vans were riddled with bullet holes, the tires deflated of all four vehicles.

They successfully got rid of immediate escape by vehicle for the Kingpins. You were impressed.

“Look out! Close your eyes!” Trevor’s voice blurted through the comms.

Michael threw down the gun, and Gavin tackled him just as a stun grenade burst near them. You had thankfully closed your eyes before the bomb had gone off, but even your ears were ringing slightly, but that just might be feedback from the mics.

Jack and Geoff were on the opposite spectrum and were completely behind cover save to lean around and shoot.

Suddenly, there was a loud laugh and Ray’s voice blurted out, “YOLO!” and Ryan’s quieter, “Thank god for that.” You couldn’t see either of them, however, when your eyes swept over the scene there was the occasional body that hadn’t been there before.

You remembered the bank and knew how quietly they could be if they wanted to.

Ryan appeared behind one of the units fighting a man with only a knife. The man was trying to shoot Ryan, who had clearly lost his gun sometime in the last few minutes. However, Ryan was close enough that every time the man lined up a shot Ryan could knock the gun away but couldn’t get a good hit in. The man was bleeding and would be dead from blood loss quickly.

Ray was shooting a man near the far side of the building, near the river.

Gavin yelped and you looked down to see him landing hard on his side. Meg tensed beside you, and her eyes were pinned on the lad. Michael grabbed his arm and yanked him into cover, and you saw him examining the other lad's arm before Michael announced that Gav just got a bullet in the arm and was alive.

You saw Meg exhale and the tension faded from her body slightly.

An explosion rocked the building and you scanned the area immediately. You saw Ryan was removing his knife from a dead body, but his attention was towards the explosion. You looked back and saw a hole in the side of the building. If the firefight didn’t draw the police that would quickly.

This needed to be finished now.

You nod to Meg and she sighs in resignation and throws the window open.

“We’re finishing this,” you announce as Meg checks her straps before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Geoff was resolute against you not coming in, but you both jump from the roof. You heard extra guns go off seemingly as one and the added fire sent confused shouts throughout the warehouse.

Your feet hit the ground and you instantly unclip yourself and dodge for the closet cover. Yes, coming in from the roof was probably the worst idea, if someone looked up and shot you you’d be dead suspended from the roof. However, you survived.

The adrenaline drowned out your conscious thought and you just moved by instinct. Shooting, stabbing or dodging by instinct. You separated from Meg at one point and you found yourself beside Jack. Jon’s voice crackled through the comms informing the group that backup had arrived and it was at least twenty people. You swore and Jack loaded her gun with a sigh.

“Sometimes this feels like a video game,” she swung out from cover and fired off about five shots before they targeted her and she pulled her extremities back before the cover. “You haven’t seen my final form yet.”

You laugh, “If this were a video game, hopefully, we are on easy and the enemy has lousy aim.”

You lifted your head and fired at the first people you saw. Jack snorted beside you. “They kind of do.”

You weren’t sure if you had killed anyone, but soon The Bombshells and the Fake AH Crew were surrounding two people in the center of the warehouse. Diamond backed up. The other one stood silently in the center and lowered their weapon to the ground and held up their hands.

“Are you willing to parley?” Diamond asked Geoff. The defect on his mask was actually a crystal, most likely a diamond. You looked at the bodies on the floor and couldn’t find Clubs’ body. You made a gesture to your crew and their eyes immediately went on the lookout for anyone still sneaking about.

“Parley? After all, you have done? You’d think we’d spare you? No…you deserve a fate worse than death. I think you owe the Vagabond an apology,” Geoff waved behind him. Diamond twisted around in surprise. Ryan stepped forwards, he was armed with only a knife, and his jacket was torn up with bullet and knife holes. “He hates it when people he cares about are hurt. Now, you can choose, a quick death or a painful life.”

Ryan reached forwards, his fingers brushing Diamond’s shoulder and Diamond let out an undignified squawk. “He doesn’t get a choice.”

You pulled off your mask and stepped forwards. The man twisted around, and his eyes widened. “You.”

Jeremy grabbed the man’s arms and held him still. You took another step and removed the man’s mask.

“Oh no…” you murmured, twisting the mask around, your eyes on the stark bruises on the man’s throat of a chain. “This is painfully awkward, Geoffrey.”

He quirked his eyebrow, staring at the man.

It wasn’t Diamond.

“You see,” you dropped the mask on the floor, “If you were Diamond, you would’ve gotten beat around a bit and then killed and have your body delivered to the crew. Your fate is going to be a lot worse,” you reach out and touch his face, “I wonder what your mouth would look like sewn shut? You did such a pretty job on mine.”

The atmosphere of the room changed instantly, and the acidic scent of piss wafted up. The man struggled fiercely against Jeremy’s grip but Jeremy kept him still.

“The thing is, this time I won’t make the stupid mistake of not double checking whether you are breathing. Once we are done with you, you’ll wish you had never even laid eyes on me. Only then will I kill you, and you won’t escape like I did,” you promise him.

Ryan pulls a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and locks the man’s wrists together. Jeremy forces the man to the ground, well more like slams him against the ground.

“Who the hell are you?” Geoff demands the other.

The man pulls off the mask covering their face.

“Hello, Geoff,” Griffon smiled at him, “Long time no see.”


	26. Remember The Name

You saw Geoff’s face starting to go red and his eyes lit up. You immediately stepped forwards, clearing your throat, “No offense, but you are a liability…” and then cocked your arm back and slammed your fist into her nose. She stumbled backward surprised, and you took the stunned moment to twist her around and twist one of her arms behind her back. “Get me something to tie her arms together.”

“But-” Geoff started, but you gave him a sharp look.

“Dollface and JDoolz, get one of the cars. The police will be here any minute and we need to get out,” you order, and Meg turned and jerked her head towards Jeremy. They both turn and sprinted out of the warehouse. Griffon didn't fight back, just sent you very dark threats under her breath. “Do you guys have anything to check for bugs?” you ask and then leaned closer to her ear, “because anyone could hear what we have to say.”

The answer was no, and you knew it. Griffon could be bugged, or the warehouse could be bugged. Hell, any of the men could have microphones on them. If you broke Griffon’s cover, you’d be in even bigger shit than you will be for just punching her in the face. You didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that revenge, but you had no choice.

The cars pulled up just as Ryan started glancing around almost frantically. Lindsay popped open the back of the trunk and you handed Griffon off before approaching the Vagabond. “What’s-”

“Ray?” Ryan called out, “Ray, check in!”

You felt ice flood your skin and you do a quick count of the heads in the room. Geoff’s face fell completely, and his voice cracked when he barked out, “Spread out and search!”

The sirens were growing louder, but you didn’t dare suggest to get out of the warehouse. Instead, you nodded to your crew and once Griffon was locked inside the trunk they spread out. You stuck to Ryan’s side like glue, you didn’t fully know how close Ray and Ryan were, but you knew they were partners. They were ‘R&R’. Ray had said the term enough. Your heart ached and you didn’t want to know how Ryan would react if Ray…well…

You circled around some boxes to where you had last seen Ray and your heart dropped. You felt bile rise in your throat and you pushed it down, you had seen dead bodies before…but you had never seen a body of someone you knew and cared about personally. You wanted to turn around and tell Ryan to turn around and that nothing was there, but the sound of his footsteps skidding on the floor filled your hearing and you knew it was too late.

The explosion had thrown Ray against some crates, but that wasn’t what killed him. A bullet. You remembered what he said weeks ago….

‘You want to see nightmare inducing, just wait till you see someone open their mouth before getting shot through the back of their throat.’

You were just fucking glad you didn’t have to see it. You wanted to be brave and take charge, but you couldn’t help but…stare. From the looks of his body, he had been getting up from the boxes, and someone had shot him in the back of the head. You swallow thickly, taking a step towards Ray’s body when you felt a bullet graze the back of your skull. You drop flat on the floor, but then you heard the click of an empty gun. A weak laugh and you whip your head in the direction. A man with blood dripping down from his scalp and holding his bleeding side stared at you.

“What? Bitch has sympathy for another crew?” he asked, stepping forwards, “Too bad the fucking Mexican didn’t have the brains to get out of the way of my bomb. You’ll be easy to fucking kill for my crew.”

You glance over to Ryan but he was gone, you scramble to your feet, “You have no weapon.”

The man pulled a hand grenade from his pocket, a sick grin on his face. “Let’s see you splattered against the wall, killing my crew like a fucking asshole.”

He strode forwards, reaching for the pin. You raise your own gun, ready to blow his brains in, but a shadow rose behind his shoulder. The grenade was plucked from his grip, like taking candy from a baby. The man twisted around, attempting to figure out where the grenade went. Ryan’s hand flew out, grabbed the man’s throat, and slammed his back against the wall. Loosened from the ceiling, a piece of concrete tipped off balance and landed beside them a solid and gritty thunk. Ryan’s anger flared from him, and he lifted the man a few inches off the ground. “No…let’s see what it looks like when a body explodes before hitting the ground.”

The man fought tooth and nail but Ryan kept his grip tight and secure as he began to shift the man closer and closer to the hole in the wall made by the earlier explosion. You hovered anxiously, finger off the trigger but ready to react if the man got out of Ryan’s grip. You were not allowing another person on your side to die today. Especially not one you cared so much about. Ryan slammed the man’s head against the concrete when he tried to get Ryan’s knife, and then he held the grenade towards you. “Pull the pin.”

You dart forwards, grabbed the pin and yanked it out. Ryan was silent, holding the grenade. You couldn’t take your eyes off the grenade, sure the trigger was held, but you weren’t an ammunitions expert. You didn’t do grenades. Would it explode regardless? Or could he hold it forever as long as he kept the trigger down? The man opened his man to scream, but Ryan shushed him.

“Normally, I would ask you to beg for your life, or scream for help…but,” he glanced at the grenade, “This isn’t for me…and I can get nothing from you with your screams. By the way, he was Puerto Rican. Not Mexican,” Ryan whispered, before shoving the grenade into the man’s shirt and then Sparta kicking the man out the window. The man screamed as he fell, and you turned your gaze away just before the explosion. Heart pounding heavily in your chest. When you turned back, the light fell on Ryan’s mask, creating shadows that blacked out the holes in his mask making it look truly like a skull. For just a moment you were scared of him, but when he turned towards you, eyes cast down, you saw tears in his eyes. He pulled you against him, and you clutched him tightly, feeling his body quivering as he tried to keep his emotions in check. You wanted to comfort him…but you didn’t know how.

The police sirens were growing louder and you could hear a chopper approaching rapidly.

The explosion drew the attention of the others. You looked up as Geoff pushed past Jeremy and stumbled towards Ray. He reached out, hands shaking uncontrollably before the rested on Ray’s cheek. There was silence and then Geoff swallowed thickly. He stuttered, trying to start a sentence at least five times before closing his eyes and removing his hand. He looked towards Jack, whose eyes were clouded over with tears and her face red from the effort of controlling her sadness. Geoff stood up, and for a moment, you thought he was going to burst into tears.

He swallowed once again, cleared his throat, and adjusted his jacket. The sirens were growing louder.

“Burn this place to the fucking ground,” Geoff snarled, “Let’s get out of here.”

The behind-the-scenes crew carefully picked up Ray’s body and carried it towards the car. You jerked your head towards your crew as they lingered waiting for you. Ryan had yet to let you go. The sirens sounded just outside the warehouse now and you knew that you had to get out of here or risk the police’s wrath. Ryan held you tightly against him until the others left, and you peeled away from him finally. He was stiff and his eyes staring at the space where Ray was. You reached up to touch his neck, just so you could feel his skin, but his hand grabbed your wrist. The action a bit too aggressive, the pressure on your wrist a bit too strong.

You flinched and tore your arm away from him. For just a moment, his eyes were hard, but then they flicked down towards you and they softened. “I’m sorry,” he muttered his voice thick, “Let’s…”

“Let’s go,” you murmured, “You avenged him, and we will get Diamond for all of this fucking shit.”

You turned, and walked away, wanting to leave this place behind you. Ryan didn’t follow immediately, and you didn’t turn your head back to look at him. A loud voice came from outside the warehouse from the police. The whole ‘come out with your hands up’ spiel. You were in no mood to joke about the cliché and did a quick head count as the others began jumping into one of the four vehicles. Everyone was accounted for, and as Ryan joined the group you pushed him towards one of the other cars as the back doors to the warehouse burst open. Red and blue lights flashing off the walls. You jump into another.

Geoff looked coldly towards the cops before emptying his clip into the fake Diamond. He muttered something that sounded like, “The wrong decision again, Geoff,” before he turned and dove into the car beside you. Jack stepped on the gas and the tires squealed as the car tore out of the warehouse. The moment you were clear of the building, the opposite end erupted with an explosion. Within seconds the dust was rising from the building as it collapsed from the explosions. Yet, there were still cops on your ass. The four vehicles containing both of your crews all split up the moment they hit the main streets, all at once. Jack nearly drove straight into another volley of police cars but was able to quickly dart into an alley and pull the car over between two others. She killed the lights.

There was complete silence in the car, and then Geoff slammed his fist into the seat in front of him. Over and over again. You swallowed thickly but remained silent. There was nothing you could say to him. When the police lights faded and the sirens moved away he got out of the car and walked away from the car. Jack hadn’t looked away from the steering wheel since pulling over.

“That just happened,” she whispered, “I…I…”

Geoff walked back to the car and opened the trunk. You heard him muttering something and then Griffon’s head appeared. They walked back to the side of the car, said a few more words and then Geoff got into the passenger seat. Griffon got into the back. Geoff didn’t look at Jack when he told her to drive.

The reality of the situation hit you.

Someone on your side was dead.

Someone who you had joked with and talked with on down times. A guy who used to play games with Jeremy. BrownMan. You thought you would cry and be hysterical, but instead, you felt numb again. You couldn’t truly believe it, even if you had seen his lifeless body yourself.

You own mortality hit you like a ton of bricks. You clamped your eyes shut and clutched your fists together on your lap.

You could only imagine the pain the Fake AH Crew was feeling.

There were no words.

All you could do for them as to make sure that when Diamond died, he knew exactly who he fucked with, and you would make sure Diamond suffered for every heartache he caused.

You’d make sure he’d remember the name, Ray Narvaez Jr.


	27. Play Your Hand

There was a funeral for Ray, or at least that’s what the Fake AH Crew called it. They did get Ray buried in the graveyard, but there was no service. They lowered his body, and then they disappeared for a few days. Twenty-one guns were stolen from the police station and apparently, five mad men empty the clips near the Vinewood sign.

You felt oddly empty when they were gone, and when they returned, you didn’t feel any better. You felt distant from Ryan, and he often disappeared for hours at a time. You felt like shit. You didn’t know how to support Ryan, and most of your waking thoughts were on Diamond. You were becoming obsessed with the man. Completely and utterly obsessed. Looking over every piece of information on him, staying up all night to think up plans, and when you did fall asleep Ray’s words came back to you as you had nightmares of his body.

Everyone was invited to the planning room and Griffon started explaining everything. Where the other warehouses were. You zoned out, only collecting the information that was important to you. Locations, names. In the end, you felt the weight of your phone heavy in your pocket. When Geoff slipped out to get a smoke, you said you would join him. The conversation slowed to a halt, and you ignored Ryan’s burning eyes on the back of your head as you closed the door behind you.

Geoff grabbed a jacket and you followed him out and onto the elevator. It was a short ride to the roof, and once out he pulled out a box and offered a cigarette to you. You accept it and he holds out a lighter. After getting it lit, you take a deep breath and take out your phone. There was a text you had saved as a draft for a few days now. You stared at the screen before hitting send. Within a few seconds, you got a reply and you shove the phone into your pocket. Geoff took a deep drag and blew the smoke out his nose. You didn’t smoke often, you used to smoke in your ‘rebellious’ years, and had the money to spend on the habit and really with your career choice a bullet was most likely going to kill you before cancer did.

“I want to scream and throw a bitch fit,” Geoff muttered, dropping down in one of the leather chairs. He rubbed his eyes and then examined the cigarette in his fingers. “That won’t get me anywhere. I’m stuck between a fucking rock and a hard place. We attack Diamond, it’ll put our crews in danger. We don’t? It puts our crews in danger, and Los Santos will be thrown off balance.”

You were silent and sat down in the armchair of another. You stared out at the setting sun and knew he was right. Diamond was powerful and dangerous…but he also had grown reckless. You hand over your phone to Geoff, not knowing how he’d take the information, but knew you had to confer with him about it and no one else. He didn’t take the phone immediately, just stared at it, and then glanced up at you. When you still didn’t say anything or remove the phone, he took it. You took a drag of the smoke and then blew it out slowly.

He handed the phone back after a moment and rolled the cigarette in his fingers.

“Ray used to be part of the police force, did you know that?” he asked, and when you nodded he continued, “He was a sniper, and was laid off during a sudden surge in the economy in Los Santos with security business rushing here like wildfire. With more jobs, more security, there was less need for such a big police force. He became friends with Michael through Halo, and they met up at a shooting range when Michael wanted to see what it felt like to shoot a sniper and see Ray’s abilities. I shadowed the meetup and when I saw Ray had a ninety percent critical hit rate, I offered him a job. He accepted it immediately, and his response was ‘Why not? High pay. I’ll get to use my skills, and from what Michael has told me the penthouse has all the sick consoles and newest games. Yolo, amirite?’”

His voice got thick as he repeated Ray’s words. You look down at him, he picked up a beer from the cooler beside him and opened it. He poured it on the roof and stared at the liquid.

“If I die today, tell Jack that she gets all my shit…there is a will in my room in the little brown box under my bed if there are legal issues for anything,” Geoff flicked his cigarette off to the side. He stood up, “Thanks for the location.”

“I’m going too,” you dropped your cigarette, and met his gaze seriously, “and if I die today…well…Lindsay gets my shit because she’s my second in command…but if there is anything Ryan really wants, then…”

Geoff nodded slowly, then rolls his shoulders, “If we’re going to go, we’d better leave soon before they come to find us.”

You agree and the two of you head for the elevator. You hit the elevator button and Geoff placed his hands over his face before vigorously rubbing. “I guess this means I will never get to ask Griffon out.”

There was a longing tone to his words.

“Talking about lost love…I guess I’ll never get to tell Ryan that I love him too,” you muttered bitterly to yourself. You had put it off to avoid getting hurt, and while he told you he loved you weeks ago, you had never said the words back.

“You told everyone else besides him?” Geoff asked, and then flinched and apologized, “This is not the time to judge each other about what we didn’t do.”

You snorted, and the elevator doors opened. As you walked towards the cabinet that contained some of the body armor, Geoff stopped you.

“Before we do this. I want to say I am so fucking sorry for abandoning you when you were twenty, and for not being able to shoot Diamond when he grabbed you,” he said holding your shoulders with both of his hands. His grip tightened slightly, “You are the closest thing I will probably ever have to a daughter, and you are Jack’s daughter regardless of whether the city would ever accept it or not. I understand if you can never forgive us for it…but I just wanted to finally apologize for it. I need to apologize for it. We’ve danced around this for long enough, and if we die tonight. You will not die alone. I will not let you feel abandoned again, not from me.”

You felt tears in your eyes, you had forgiven them years ago. You had issues with it, but you understood it. You pulled him into a hug, crushing him against you. “Geoff…I forgave you guys when you came back. You guys always come back.”

"We shouldn't have left in the first place," he whispered, and you felt his body start to quiver. Your eyes blurred with tears and you buried your face into his shoulder. After a moment of silence, you stepped back, wiping your tears. “There is no time for tears,” you berate him, as well as yourself. “Let’s take Diamond out, together.”

He wiped his eyes before turning around and throwing open the doors to the cabinet. Within minutes both of you were armed to the teeth.

Your phone began to vibrate and you saw Clubs’ number you answered as you got into the car. It might be a trap, but fuck it. You didn’t care. The moment Diamond was within arms reach you were going to kill him with or without weapons.

“Hearts and Ace are both waiting for my word,” Clubs’ voice muttered quietly, “They won’t hit you though they may shoot at you to keep their cover.”

“Understandable, I’m bringing another.”

“Who?”

“DG.”

There was silence and then Clubs’ laughed softly, “Alright. I’ll inform them. Ace will instruct his people to slyly direct you towards Diamond. Look for men with an orange symbol that looks like an odd ‘H’ on their weapons. They’ll stand by entrances to hallways. Throw stun grenades near them and they’ll get out of the way so nobody gets harmed.”

“What is your job?” you asked, taking Geoff’s phone and imputing the address into the GPS. He pulled out of the garage before you phone beeped telling you someone was trying to phone you.

“I’ll be getting Diamond out of the location, Spades will be suspicious if I do anything else. I’ll make sure that Diamond is not a threat to you two, but I cannot promise the same for Spades.”

You thanked him and hung up. You related the information to Geoff. He nodded curtly and the car fell silent. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.

To be honest, you were almost expecting Diamond’s main hideout to be…well dark and dismal. Something that exuded his hate and evil. Instead, it was a modern style house in the priciest neighbourhood. The gated kind of community, where the properties were so big that high fences to keep nosy neighbours at bay wasn’t needed, but were still used. Unfortunately, with modern homes, you knew that there was a lot of open space. Plenty of open air for people to shoot at you and kill you. However, in theory, it should be super quick to find the bastard and take him out. If you were a task force or part of the swat team, you could kill him in less time than it would take with just you and Geoff.

Geoff circled the property and parked down the block. It was already dark out, and a lot of people were heading out for a night on the town. The two of you waited until there was no one coming or going before slipping out of the car and into the darkness that the well-manicured properties offered. Jumping fences were easier for you than it was for Geoff, who complained quietly that he hadn’t jumped fences since he started in the business. You grinned as he stumbled over a rock in the darkness, and grabbed his elbow to guide him through the darkness. As the property grew closer, your smile faded. The two of you dropped to your stomach and watched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not uploading yesterday, folks! Halloween and all! I'll be participating in NaNoWriMo this month! Wish me luck~!


	28. I Fold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit! I forgot again D:<
> 
> Two more chapters and then the story is completed in the good news! In the bad news, I have serious writers block right now, and therefore my other stories are lacking and nanowrimo has not even been started. So RIP me.

Four men were circling the property slowly, in groups of two. They passed every five minutes. Walking at a fairly slow pace, chatting along the way.

Above balcony doors opened and you saw Clubs walk to the edge. He lit a cigarette and looked over the property slowly and casually. Spades leaned against the balcony beside him and you saw the body language of Clubs change instantly. He was tenser and irritated. They exchanged words and Spades turned around. He was the asshole who wanted to kidnap your girls. Anger fueled your stomach and your hands clenched together tightly. When Diamond walked out that fury grew, and Geoff shifted in the dirt. The healed fracture still ached in your finger, your nail was still growing back, and you still had trouble looking in the mirror. Your face had faded yellow bruises from healing skin, there were fleshy pink scars from where the needles had pierced your skin around your mouth.

To your credit, neither of you moved until the three went back into the house and the guards went around again. Geoff gestured towards the guards as they disappeared around the corner. You nod, and five minutes later the two of you jumped the guards. You didn’t even hesitate when you stabbed your knife into the man’s back and covered his mouth. His body went slack against yours after a moment of struggle and then you and Geoff dragged the bodies into the bush. Five minutes later you did the same for the other two.

Getting into the house was easy, none of the doors were locked, and with a lot of huge windows, you could tell if someone was in the room before you snuck in.

Just as Geoff was closing the door, two men walked into the room, bickering about someone else farting too much. They both paused as you and Geoff raised your guns. They exchanged a look before shrugging.

“So, if someone farts next to you, do you laugh or do you hit them? I’m asking for a friend,” one of them asked, “Like, it wasn’t a tiny fart either.”

The other one shifted their jacket, and underneath was a pistol with a funny looking ‘H’ symbol on the handle. He dropped his jacket and snorted, “Of course they would laugh, farts are funny.”

“Only you think farts are funny, Bruce,” the other one shook his head, and then jerked his head, “Speaking of, if you’re looking for toilets, there’s one down the hall.”

“Why?” Geoff asked, brow furrowing.

“Cus you’re trying to take out a shit,” Bruce laughed, “Good one James.”

The two continued past you, James stopped and leaned down and whispered, “Elyse slipped him a narcotic.”

You didn’t know who Elyse was but they didn’t spare another moment and headed on. You shrugged towards Geoff before taking the lead, heading down the hall. There was laughter from the door Bruce and James left, but the other door was silent. You cracked the door open and were met with an empty and open living room. There were some men smoking on the couches, but none of them even looked up as the two of you entered. The sense of it being a trap grew, and as you slowly crept toward the stairs one of the doors burst open and a man came in carrying four bottles of vodka.

“One of the bastards ate shit! We finally got one!” he cheered and the others let out cheers. “Brady blew him off his fucking feet and then popped him in the head, the little fuck was their sniper too! He should’ve seen it coming for miles!”

The others laughed cruel, as he passed the vodka around.

Just as the last bottle was passed, Geoff raised his gun and popped the man’s head. There was an instant reaction, and you swung your own gun up and took advantage of the chaos. The men grabbed their guns, and you didn’t see any ‘H’ symbols on their weapons and gave Geoff the slightest indication and they were dead in seconds. The sounds drew the laughing crowd out of their room. Geoff grabbed a stun grenade and tossed it back down the hall the two of you emerged from. It exploded and you quickly took down those who were blinded.

One of the men who came had an ‘H’ symbol on his gun, and he shot just to the side of you. His eyes flicked to the stairs behind you before darting back into the room he had been in. Geoff turned around, aiming at the stairs as you kept your gun and attention behind you. There were a few gunshots behind you and you felt a bullet slam into your vest but it made you stumble and nothing more. There was a series of loud thuds before Geoff was moving on. You turned around and saw two bodies lying at the base of the stairs. Geoff took the stairs cautiously and you followed behind.

The sweep of the upstairs bedrooms was quick, and the last room you both took position beside the door.

With a nod, Geoff slammed the door open and threw a stun grenade into it.

The moment it went off you both burst into the room, guns at the ready.

The room was empty. You could swear it was the room that Diamond was in, but it was completely empty.

“Looking for me?” Diamond asked before someone kicked your legs out from under you. You collapsed to your knees and your gun was wrestled away from you before your arms were brought behind your back and handcuffs were slapped on. Geoff faired no better, but he was rewarded with a broken nose for his struggles. “Search them for any more weapons.”

Two men stepped forwards and frisked both of you, taking only surface weapons and removing your bulletproof vests. Geoff’s face twisted in confusion, but Diamond was looking at you. “How come whenever you've involved my men die?”

“I’m warming up until I kill you,” you retort sharply.

“High talk for someone who's handcuffed and at my mercy,” Diamond grinned down at you, before snapping his fingers. “We’re going for a ride, to the docks. Get their crews on the phone. I am going to wipe out two crews with one stone.”

Once you found the sound of the ocean calming and beautiful. You and Ryan had gone to the pier many times during your days of simple dates and quiet exchanges. Hearing the sound of the waves lapping against the docks was no longer soothing. With the darkness, it was even menacing. Geoff was sitting crossed legged beside you, watching Diamond pace away from you. All of the big leagues of the Kingpins were there. Clubs stood next to you, arms crossed and looking every inch of a giant as he was portrayed to be. Spades was flipping his knife, watching Geoff intently. Ace was standing near Clubs, his follows had been forced to stay behind, and he looked almost uncomfortable to be away from them. You would be too. There was a man standing in the shadows, but you had heard him called ‘Hearts’.

It was quiet despite the situation, you had expected some huge monologue from Diamond about how he finally won. What normal villains would do?

Too bad it wasn’t a cartoon, the good guys would get away and end up getting the upper hand.

You and Geoff weren’t the good guys, you had murdered many more of Diamond’s people than he had of yours. He had brought it upon himself, however, so you felt no sympathy for him. He attacked your crew first, and you would have the last laugh if it was the last fucking thing you did.

The silence was eradicated as the sound of squealing tires came tearing towards the docks. Within seconds a Zentorro slid mere inches from Diamond and Ryan got out before it even stopped. He wasn’t wearing his mask, nor face paint. The fact alone terrified you that he had come alone. Instead, Jack climbed out from the passenger side, just as five more cars pulled up and the entirety of The Bombshells and the Fake AH Crew emerged, armed to the teeth. Ryan’s eyes met yours and you saw the pure fury in them and the cold calculation as they turned back to Diamond. You glanced at Geoff, you didn’t want them to do something stupid, and you knew that people acting from their heart rather than their mind did awfully idiotic things.

Geoff shared your thoughts.

Something hard was pressed against the back of your head and Geoff stiffened at the same time as you.

“Now, don’t be rash,” Diamond held up his hands and grinned at Ryan. He then paused and tilted his head, “Wait, you are that guy I kidnapped.”

“Yes, and I make sure that everyone who sees my face ends up dead,” he purposefully looked at each of the men before his eyes settled on Diamond’s. “Those who hurt those I care about…well,” his voice went cheerful, “I’m just going to let you know this now. The world is a small place, there is nowhere you can hide from me. I think I’ll skin you alive, and feed your remains to pigs. You’ll be at home in death with your kin.”

Clubs chuckled quietly beside you.

Diamond walks away from Ryan, but the effects of Ryan’s words are clear on his face. He was white as a bone.

“Here is what’s going to happen,” Diamond announced, his voice wavering at first but grew strong, “Your beloved leaders are going to be executed, and you will all disband, or the same will happen to you.”

Geoff laughed bitterly, “If you honestly think that, you don’t know the first thing about having a crew. My crew will fight for me even if I’m dead. The Bombshells will bring you down if she dies. Our deaths would just fuel their burning rage and sadness further and you would be dead in days.”

“No,” Diamond waved his hand, “Because they’d need their things, won’t they? When their penthouse is rigged to explode it will be very hard to get their resources back.”

You saw Geoff tense slightly.

“Now!” Diamond gestured to the two of you, “Who wants to die first?”

“I’ll make you a deal, Diamond,” you spoke up, “Geoff will leave alive, and go back to his crew. My crew will disappear and disband and you can kill me. Besides, what better way to get back at Jack for leaving your crew in such a disarray as killing her daughter?”

Diamond’s eyes widened and Jack shouted. She took a step forwards but Gavin grabbed her arm and stopped her as the gun pressed into your skull harder. “You are Jack’s daughter? How the fuck is that possible?”

“Well,  Jack’s adopted daughter. My real mother?” you told him our mother’s name, “She’s been dead for years now.” It almost looked like his eyes would burst from his scalp. Hearts straightened in the dark and the others tensed. Spades stopped flipping his knife, instead stared at you with interest. “If I die today, Jack would never forgive Geoff for letting me go to your place with just him as backup, and the crew would tear itself apart. Just as my mother tore yours apart many years ago.”

“What the fuck are you doing!” Meg shouted, “Stop with this shit, don’t try to be a fucking hero all the time!”

You ignored her, “What’s it going to be?”

Diamond’s face faded into neutrality, as he considered it. The others waited with baited breath.

“Deal,” he jerked his head and Geoff was brought to his feet and shoved towards the others. Geoff didn’t go easily and fought wildly to get to you. You averted your eyes to the ground.

“I’m not fucking leaving you again,” Geoff shouted, his voice cracking, “I’m not letting him do shit to you!”

“I didn’t want much blood on my hands anyway,” Diamond walked over to Clubs and held out his hand. Clubs handed him a gun and stepped back.

The moment the gun behind your head lowered, Michael jumped forwards and slugged Spades in the jaw. Chaos broke out instantly. The fragile power imbalance that Diamond had shattered and he grabbed you and dragged you backward, holding the gun to your head. You start to shout without realizing it. Begging them to just leave and let what has to happen happen. You didn’t believe they’d abandon it, but if you could spare their lives for one more day, you would. Clubs fell in beside Diamond, and Ace followed in behind him.

Ryan was making his way towards you, and the Kingpin pawns seemed to completely ignore him, and those who dared to even spare him a glance had a bullet to the brain within the same instance. You focused your shouts on him. If anyone needed to survive it was him. You couldn’t live with yourself if he died today.

“If you won’t deal with the terms!” Diamond screamed, stepping onto a boat with you held tightly in front of him. “Then I’ll make sure she dies a slow and painful death!”

Clubs headed to the front of the boat and before Ryan could get close enough to do anything, a few more members jumped onto the boat and it sped off into the night.

You watched as his face fell and all at once he let out a roar and he turned and without any sense of loyalty, held down the trigger and the ‘ratata’ of his machine gun punctured the night before the dock faded into nothing but flashes of light in the distance.


	29. There is no Silver Lining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fixed the previous chapter! Totally didn't catch the mess up until today after seeing some of the comments! Thanks for letting me know guys <3

Ryan saw nothing but red, and as he came out of his fury, his hands were covered in blood, his chest was heaving, and the blade in his hand was buried deep in a man’s skull. The fury didn’t fade, just the bloodrage, and he was able to sit back and coldly assess the situation. His girlfriend was gone, taken away again, but this time he was right there and he couldn’t do anything for her. Just watched as she screamed for him to leave, for him to not care. The fear in her eyes the closer he got just simple fueled his urge to get her to safety and then kill everyone who threatened her.

Yet, she had slipped out of his grasp like she was smoke.

A hand touched his shoulder, and in an instant, he was on his feet with his hands around the intruder's throat. His hands instantly loosened when he saw Jack’s face staring at him…not in surprise, but with fear. The moment he dropped his hands, she exhaled and the look faded from her face. She said something but he ignored her, instead, he looked at his hands and then back at the ocean. The boat was nowhere to be seen. All Ryan wanted to do was murder something, do what he promised to do to Diamond. He wanted to peel the fuckers skin from his bones. Slowly.

“Get on a fucking boat, Gavin, track her cell phone!” Geoff snapped out, “As long as they stay in range of the towers we should be able to find them.”

Ryan reached up and ran his hands through his hair. It had fallen out of the tie sometime since she had been taken. A flash of her running her fingers through his hand, of her braiding his hair, of his hair tickling her face as they made love, burst through his mind and a sharp ache filled his chest. The looks of both sympathy and fear that the others gave him just fueled the pain and he pushed past Jack and headed towards the boat Geoff mentioned. Gavin was on his phone, an intense look of concentration on his face. As Geoff went to step into the boat, Ryan’s hand shot out and grabbed his jacket, keeping him firmly between the dock and the boat. The others froze, watching the scene not knowing how to react.

“Geoff, you are my friend,” Ryan started, his voice calm and even, “I didn’t give a damn when your crew messed up my fucking life, or when it made me go mad for years. However, if she is dead. If I find out she suffered in any sort of way…” he trailed off, “I will remember that you went with her without telling any of us. I will remember you put her in the position to get kidnapped. I will remember that you tore out my heart and stepped on it. I will never forgive you.”

He yanked Geoff onto the boat, and then sat heavily down in one of the seats. “For the sake of our friendship, and for the love I have for her, I will kill Diamond. I will make him suffer tenfolds of what he ever made us all suffer. Then I will find you.”

“Ryan!” Gavin snapped, “It’s not Geoff’s fault! If you even think about hurting Geoff because of this-”

“Oh, Gavin,” Ryan’s voice went back to cheerful, “Don’t threaten me with a good time because I know exactly where to hit you as well.”

That ended any rebuttal as Jack got the helm and pulled the boat off the dock. Gavin returned to his task, intent on finding Diamond before he could do what he had threatened to do. He squawked loudly when the cell phone appeared on his map and he launched to his feet and shoved it in Jack’s face. She snapped at the boy but immediately redirected the boat towards the coordinates. The boat was tense and no one spoke as they grew closer.

Covered in blood and weapons reloaded, they waited. Ryan felt his chest tightened the further and further they got from the docks and closer and closer they got to the boat.

The boat wasn’t moving when they went around a small rocky islet and laid their eyes upon it. From what they could tell no one was on the deck, which sent Ryan to his feet. It wasn’t a small boat per ce…but it wasn’t one that had a lower deck. There was no way they were still on it, and if they were well…Ryan didn’t want to think about whose bodies they would find on the deck. The tension skyrocketed as Jack was able to pull the boat up next to the other without any contest. Ryan’s heart dropped as he hopped up onto the other boat. There were bodies everywhere, blood splattering the false wood.

Meg appeared by his side, “She’s not here…but neither are Clubs or Spades,” she pointed out, “I’ll check out the stern, but I doubt we’ll find anything.”

He felt irritated by her words, but he nodded curtly and looked intently at each of the bodies. Trying to figure out if she could’ve done any of the damage…if she could’ve gotten off the boat.

If she had, wouldn’t she have made herself known by now? It couldn’t have been more than an hour since he had seen her last. It had taken them fifteen or so minutes to find the boat, and probably fifteen minutes to kill the other me and get out of his blood rage. Could she have killed the ten men on the boat and gotten off alive? It was too dark, and as he glanced around he could barely see the mainland. No, she wasn’t stupid. If anything she would’ve stayed on the boat.

The others were on the boat now, and Ryan could see Geoff searching wildly for any female body on the boat, and when he didn’t the man stumbled to the edge of the boat and looked wildly around. Jack ran a shaking hand through her red hair and looked towards Geoff in silent anger and sadness. So, Ryan wasn’t the only one who blamed Geoff.

Meg darted back around the boat and nearly ran straight into him when he made a face and went to tell her to back up she gave him a sharp look. “You are not the only one hurting,” she snapped at him, before holding out the camera, “I found this on a body near the stern.”

He was surprised at the girl's lack of fear of him, and took the camera from her hands and opened it.

——

Diamond smirked down at you as the boat slowed to a stop. You had not taken your eyes away from the horizon where the dock had disappeared. Were they okay? Did they kill all of Diamond’s crew? Or were they laying bleeding on the dock without medical care, or worse with the LSPD arriving in response to the firefight. You turned your gaze to Clubs, and he avoided your gaze by nodding towards Diamond. You saw the regret in his eyes, however, and sent as much hate in your eyes toward him as you could. Diamond snapped his fingers, and increasingly irritating action and one of his men set up a camera.

“I’m going to prove to them that you died slowly,” he threatened, “Maybe then they’ll take me seriously.”

“Maybe if you actually fought instead of running,” you snapped back, “Maybe then they’d take you seriously, all you are is a pest to them. A pest that is becoming more and more of an irritant.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Diamond ordered, and you glared at the camera as the red light blinked on.

“Never,” you retort, tearing your gaze back to Diamond, “If you want me to shut up, take my fucking tongue out of my god damn tongue. If you want me to not fucking think negatively towards you, take my eardrums. Idle threats will never stop me, and your threats are weak. Your threats are carried out by others and never by you!”

“Yet, I have you again. You sure play the damsel in distress part well,” Diamond’s voice was dripping with acid, and he nodded to Spades. Another crew member brought over a table and Spades grabbed your hands and unlocked your handcuffs before slapping your hand palm down on the top of the table.

“What? Are we going to play Five Finger Fillet?” you snorted, “Honestly, your torture crew did a better job before I gutted them.”

“No,” Diamond pulled the gun out that Clubs had given him earlier and pressed it against the top of your hand, “I remember you said that you were the one that mutilated my man's hand? Let me one up you.”

You clamped your eyes shut as he pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, and Diamond raised the gun. “What the fuck?”

Clubs grabbed Spade's arm and twisted it away, you looked at him as the others started shouting. “Your gun!” he shouted back at you, shoving Spades away, and yanking the table from under your hand and throwing it at a group of men struggling to get their weapons aimed at Clubs. You yanked the weapon from its holster under your shirt. Two other men fired at their comrades, and you swing the gun towards Diamond. You saw the fear on his face, and he looked wildly around. You pulled the trigger, but he lunged out of the way, grabbing the machine gun from one of the downed men and twirling around.

There was the sharp noise before you felt an explosion of utter agony in your left arm. You cried out and stumbled.

“You bitch! You’re worse than your mother!” Diamond screamed, stepping forwards and relining the machine gun.

“I’m better than her!” you screamed back, and lunged forwards, firing the pistol rapidly.

The first four bullets hit his chest, the next hit his throat, and the final embedded itself into his eye socket. He crumbled to the ground and the boat went silent. Your chest was heaving heavily, and then a hand touched your shoulder. You looked up to see Clubs staring down at his old boss. He then looked at you and at those still standing. Those who were not part of the rebellion dropped their guns, and you felt a surge of adrenaline in your veins.

“Those left in his crew are free to leave,  those who want a leader who they can depend on will be under my command. Do you understand?” you bark at the men, a few nodded.

One of their heads exploded and they crumbled.

“You fucking bitch, we should’ve stayed the entire week to kill you,” Spades snarled behind you, one eye closed from blood and his arm bent at an awkward position. He took a step forward, and you turned the gun on him. “I should’ve begged the bastard to let me at you when you were being tortured, you would’ve never pulled this shit,” he raises a machine gun and lets out another spray of bullets. Clubs shoves you to the side, but the bullets tear into your hip. The moment you put weight on your hip to support yourself, it gave out and you fell against the edge of the boat. Clubs advanced on Spades, but the smaller man darted around Clubs and ran at you screaming. You raised your gun and managed to pump two bullets into him before he hit you. You felt a moment of weightlessness before the ocean swallowed you.

The dark and cold-stunned you when you plummeted into the freezing night waters, and for a moment you didn’t fight for breath or fight to get above the water. You just stared straight above where the lights of the moon and the boat shimmered.

Then all at once, your lungs were burning, your legs were numb, and your fingers were clawing through the water for the surface.

—

Geoff whipped his pistol at the wall and collapsed to his knees. Meg started sobbing, begging for someone to go to the side of the boat and see if they could see her body.

Ryan watched the video, hoping, praying, that Clubs or one of the others would reach into the water and pull her out. The video ended shortly after she was shoved off the boat and into the water. His gaze rose to the side of the boat, the bloody smear against the wall was exactly what he had feared it was. She hadn’t been stupid, she had been murdered.

She had suffered, Diamond hadn’t been the one to do it, but he was the one who had promised she would. Ryan could only hope that she had died of blood loss much faster than she had died from drowning. He knew it was impossible and stumbled towards the edge of the boat. The cold water might’ve slowed her heart enough…but she would’ve died regardless.

There was no way she survived.

He slowly walked back over to Diamond, staring at the smug assholes face. The bullets in the man’s bodies were from her…and he was proud of her. He dropped to one knee and repeatedly started slamming his fist over and over into Diamond’s face. Ignoring the searing pain as his knuckle connected with flesh, and bone, and teeth. He continued punching until tears blurred his vision, and someone pulled him away. He collapsed on his ass, covered his face and sobbed.


	30. Epilogue

“I am sorry,” the doctor apologized once again and patted your hand. You moved it out of the way. You didn’t know why he was giving you any sympathy anyways. The police were going to arrest you the moment you were cleared by the hospital. This man knew all about your criminal activities, he knew you murdered people, peddled drugs, stole, and hurt. Everything his doctor code was against. Do no harm. Then again, you guessed he needed to show sympathy to all his patients. “There are rehabilitation options which may give you mobility of your leg again…but the damage was too severe to the nerves, muscle, and bone tissue. Since we treated the drowning before the leg, the damage was too-”

“I understand,” your voice growled, more from the damage to your throat than anything, but you met his gaze with the intensity of the irritation you were feeling, “I’m just going to jail for the rest of my life, why should it matter if I can walk?”

He pressed his mouth in a line, “You might get parole.”

You laughed, “I’m a leader of a gang, I’m going to get twenty years minimum. If I even get a trial, this is Los Santos. I’ll either get the death sentence or just get thrown in jail, the key tossed away, and my name is forgotten. There is no justice in this city, otherwise, why would there be so much crime?”

The door opened and Adam walked in. The doctor swallowed and shifted nervously, he had always cowered around Adam, and you had thought it funny when you first saw it. Now you just turned your head to the window. You had been healing from your near-death experience for the past half a year, and for a bit more than half of that you were in a coma for. Your memory of the past year or two were spotty, but you could grasp onto the further memories easily. You knew your crew, you knew Geoff and Jack. Anything else was like trying to grab onto smoke, you’d think you got it and open your hand and find nothing. It was frustrating and what was worse was there was no one around to fill you in on the details. Adam only knew what happened on his end of the spectrum

You had gotten Adam to look for your crew, but the search was fruitless. They were all dark. Their old addresses, alias’, phone numbers, even the Fake AH Crew penthouse was empty and for sale for a ridiculous price. Adam admitted he bought it when he saw it was empty. He didn’t know if you wanted it or not, and if the Fake AH Crew came back, they might not like some asshole with two asshole Chihuahuas’ and fifteen cats living in their space. He was currently living there with his lab and two cats and said it was different because his dog was great and his cats were clean.

Your apartment had been empty, everything had been in a warehouse like you had told your crew, but when Adam went there, the warehouse was being redone as offices. You had nothing, even your bank account had been emptied and deleted. It was scary, but you were going to jail. Your possessions were most likely in Lindsay’s capable hands.

You didn’t even want to consider the other option.

The doctor left, and Adam sat down in the chair beside you. “Still nothing…”

“Stop looking,” you murmur, “There’s no reason. I’m alone and I’m going to jail, if I was selfish enough, I’d ask you to shoot me to spare me the annoyance of going to jail.”

“You’re not alone,” Adam retorted, “You’ve got a crew. It’s just not the one you remember, but they’re loyal to me and I’m loyal to you. Because of you, I realized how utterly shitty my crew was.”

“You’re loyal to me until I prove otherwise,” you correct, “You might decide I’m a piece of shit and I’ll end up like Diamond.”

“Diamond was intentionally going after your crews to kill you guys or hurt you. From your history, you didn’t go after a crew unless they poked your buttons enough that your hand was forced. As long as you keep that level of thinking, I’m behind you,” Adam crossed his arms, “We can-”

The door burst open and a tall but scrawny man entered. “Adam!” he greeted and snatched up the remote. You frowned, glancing at the two men.

“This is Joel, he was part of the Cockbites years ago and went by ‘Hearts’ in The Kingpins. He knew your mother,” Adam introduced before his attention was drawn to the television. “Are you sure you want me to stop looking for your crew?”

“Yes, I just-” you started, but he pointed towards the television and your words died in your throat. Jon Risinger shuffled some papers on the desk, before looking up at the camera. Your heartbeat heavily in your chest and you sat up.

“Last night was tragic as another man was found dead, the murder happened at one thirteen last night and found in the morning with six bullet holes. This is the tenth death in the last two months with the same wounds inflicted. The criminals were caught on film this time, and the police are requesting any sort of help in capturing these murderers before they could strike again,” the pictures appeared on the screen and your heart stopped.

A woman with a ceramic masquerade mask decorated with black and red. A man with a black skull mask.

The screen returned to Jon’s face, and you heard the catch in his voice as he said, “The fugitives go by ‘Dollface’ and ‘The Vagabond’ respectively. Police are advising that you do not approach these masked criminals as they are highly dangerous. This is not the Vagabond’s first serial killing spree, and the police fear it will not be the last.”

You take the remote back from Joel and turn off the television, staring at the black screen. Joel ignored you and looked at Adam. “Those jerks you were looking for are still alive. Why didn’t you just ask me, by the way? I was left behind like an asshole on the dock as you guys took off,” Joel accused, and then pulled up a chair. “They all left after killing the others, and took off in a boat in urgent search for her,” Joel jerked a thumb towards you. “The Vagabond threatened that he was going to go after Geoff if she was dead.”

“Find Geoff,” you order looking at Adam, if he was dead you’d blame yourself, and you would make sure Ryan felt your wrath. You remembered him in bits and pieces. The bliss of a new romance, the anger of discovering who he was, and then a few snippets of talking and light touches after. You felt like you needed to tell him something, and you were getting the impression it was to tell him to watch his back. If he had even touched Geoff, you would make sure he felt the pain just as badly.

“Oh, Geoff’s fine,” Joel waved his hands, “Well, he’s currently in hiding and won’t come out even for his own crew. It’s being run by someone else with the initials LJ, I couldn’t find any more on that lead though…”

“You knew where Geoff was?” Adam asked, bewildered, “and you didn’t tell me?”

“You didn’t ask me! Adam! I am one of the greatest sources for this shit, and you just went to Griffon instead. Lovely woman, but god! I’ve been in this game longer.”

“Are they all safe then?” you asked, looking at Joel, “Since you know everything.”

The two men exchanged a look, and then Adam cleared his throat. “Spades is loose still. When you went overboard, I knocked him aside and got the others to help me get you. When we got you back onto the boat, he was gone. I thought he had thrown himself overboard to die on his own terms…but when I was searching for your crew, I got word that he was alive. He’s licking his wounds and I have no idea if he’s going to try to get revenge for what happened or not.”

You close your eyes, and when you didn’t open them for a bit, Adam shooed Joel out of the room. The moment the door closed, you opened them. After another moment you push the blankets down and start to try to get out of the bed. Adam stopped you, grabbing your legs as you got them out of the bed and tucking them back under the blanket and shoving the offending object up to your chin.

“If Spades is alive, I need to find him…I need to kill him,” you threaten, not caring if you were being taped. If you were it was far too late. The police would already know, and hey they might actually do something to stop more criminals from gaining a foothold in the city. Not that it wasn’t bad enough already.

The door opens again, and before Adam could stop the woman she was halfway over and placing your lunch on the table. You look over to thank her and see Griffon. She was wearing bright orange scrubs with dogs on them. She winks at you and slides the table across your lap before checking your vitals. “I would highly recommend the pudding, I love chocolate.”

You knew better than to blow her cover so easily, but you can’t help but stare at her in confusion. “I’ve had this pudding every day for weeks now,” you push the tray away slightly, “Can’t I get something else?”

“No, but the pudding is great,” she insisted again, and you again deny the pudding. You had the sudden fear she was trying to tell you it was poisoned, and at the same time had half the mind to eat it. She sighed and repeated the message again. With a bit of irritation, you picked up the pudding and handed it to Adam. He looked startled but accepted the offered food. “It’s fine,” Griffon insisted and then tapped the table. “If you need anything, let me know.”

Her voice was sincere and then she left the room. You glanced down at the tray, “What the hell was her obsession over the pudding-” you stop, and see the napkin underneath the pudding had a scribbled phone number on it. The writing was so familiar to you.

Geoff.

“I better get going,” Adam sighed, placing the empty pudding cup down on the tray and standing, “Visiting hours are over. The hospital is clearing you tomorrow, and the police will do everything they can to keep your arrest quiet. The Bombshells are gone, and the Fake AH Crew is absent. Your arrest could stir the pot and have all the bad people back in town at a moment’s notice.”

You nod, staring at the piece of napkin. Adam started walking away but then stopped and looked down at you.

“Wait three months, I’ll visit you. A week after that your new crew will bust you out to prove their skills to you,” he whispered, “Do you want to name the crew? Or just let the newspaper do it?”

“SAI Crew,” you blurt out and then smile to yourself. He frowns.

“SAI? What the hell does that mean?”

“It’s an inside joke,” the corner of your mouth raises, “but here,” you hand him the napkin, “Keep that safe…if you do get me out, and after I find Spades, I’ll need that.”

You weren’t going to involve your crew or the FAHC anymore. If you wouldn’t admit it out loud, you would in your head. You cared for them too much to involve them with that asshole, and you would do anything to make sure they were safe. Even if they didn’t know you were looking out for them. A lot of people would call you stupid for it, idiotic, whatever. This was a dog eat dog world, and you had a huge target on your back. The moment you revealed yourself to Los Santos as alive and well, they would try to prove that they could do what Diamond could not do. They’d try to kill you, somebody might succeed. So first, you had to get a new crew, and hope to God they were as loyal as your last.

He quirks an eyebrow but nods and wishes you luck before leaving the hospital room. With everyone gone it felt too quiet, too empty, and you turn the television back on. The news station was doing a story on ‘The Vagabond’ and his history in Los Santos. You knew what you needed to tell him wasn’t about Geoff or about anyone else. It was something else.

And you promised yourself that one day you would remember what you needed to say to him so badly and that one day you could tell him face-to-face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end~!  
> I hope you all enjoyed this fic! I'm hoping to be able to get out the sequel before the new year, but motivation issues atm haha.
> 
> Thank you everyone who read, commented, liked, and all that jazz~! I hope you have a wonderful life!


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